Gentle Woman
by LikeNobodysWatching
Summary: When Santana Lopez confronts the woman she caught in bed with her boyfriend of two years, chaos ensues...and maybe a little love.
1. Chapter 1

Two passing strangers in Time Square, New York. One glances down, reaches into her coat pocket.

The other smiles fondly to his left, waves at an old school friend across the street.

Their shoulders end up colliding.

Her steely charcoal orbs snap up, and she gives the man eyes that'd put a hole in solid wood.

He instantly throws his hands up, palms facing away. "Sorry. I guess I…" His grayish-brown eyes jaunt off across the street, falling upon the back of his disappearing school friend for a brief moment. "Wasn't lookin' where I was goin'."

She was the kind of person that had to bump you back if you accidentally bumped her, and then she was going to crack you in the throat on top of that, because she was _still_ pissed about the infraction.

But not today.

"Just watch it next time!" She growls, voice escaping through the gaps of her caged teeth.

"Sorry." The man offers a tight smile, gripping his shopping bags more securely before somewhat awkwardly shifting off into the blizzard of pedestrians adorning the streets.

She keeps her two feet rooted to the pavement, pats the lump in her other pocket, and quickly reaches inside, pulling out her phone. With the little sleek device cupped, landscape, between both of her hands, she rapidly thumbs out a text.

_On my way home baby. Left the gym early. Thai food? xXx_

She slips the phone back into her jacket, takes a nice large breath, before blowing it back out as chilled misty vapor.

Several minutes later, when she's rounding the corner of a particularly long street, thai food's delicious aroma wafting up at her from the large white bag in her grasp, her phone pleasantly hums against her lower ribcage. For her short legs, her strides are long as she thumbs her phones pick-up button and slips the device through the sleek black curtain of her hair to her ear.

"'Sup?"

"Err…Santana, I just got your text. How about you pick up something Greek tonight instead? I threw up last time we had Thai, remember?"

She rolls her eyes, the ghostly essence of that rancid vomit somehow floating on her nostrils. "Yeah, only 'cause you got blitzed trying to impress Finn, asshole. I'm never gonna get the smell out of the carpet by the window. You know, he's still gonna give me some money so we can get new carpet, because if he hadn't egged you on you wouldn't have been drinking."

"How close to the apartment are you?"

Santana's brows knit as she crosses the dead street, short heels percussioning against the pavement. "Why?"

"No reason!" He responds, entirely too quickly. "…Except that I want Greek food?"

"Fuck the Greek food, Noah. Why do you sound so freakin' suspicious?"

"Suspicious?" He says, all too defensive. "What, what are you talking about woman?" A chuckle one could deduce as a nervous one flutters from his lips. "I just want Greek foo –"

"And why are you breathing so hard?"

"I'm, I'm not breathing hard, baby. What's with the Spanish inquisition?"

"Oh my God, did you just zing me with a racist joke?"

"What? No. Why're you always looking for somethin' that's not there?"

Just then a soft, feminine voice wisps into Santana's earshot. It's brief, but she could swear it whispered against her ear drum. Her forehead crumples in frown. "Wait, who's there with you?"

"W-What?"

That one word from her boyfriend, woven and slick with utmost panic, is all Santana needs to hear for the cogs in her mind to creak into a slow foreboding grind.

"Nobody's here, baby. It's probably just the TV…"

_Didn't sound like the God damn TV_. _Sounded like you got some bitch up in my apartment._

"Ok." Santana says slowly, brows still knitted. "Well what do you want from the Greek place?"

His smile can be felt through his voice, as it carries jubilant ripples of glee into her ear. "The usual – and which shop are you heading to? I'm just, I'm really hungry. How long do you think you'll be?"

She slows her step, unable to deny the brooding mist forming in her gut. "Why does it matter how long I'm gonna be? I'm gonna be as long as it takes, aren't I?"

"Why're you getting pissed, baby? I just asked a simple question."

"I'll probably be another forty minutes or something; you know those damn places always like to keep you waiting for your food."

"Great. Thanks baby. I love you."

Santana pulls her phone away from her ear, frowns at it for a moment, before returning it. "Yeah…love you too. Bye."

"Bye."

.

.

.

Five minutes later, Santana is stood in front of her apartment door. She sets the bag of Thai food down gently on their welcome mat and squints at her front door as though, at any minute, the solid matter will fall away, and she'll be able to see what's going on on the other side of it.

"I swear to God, if you're smashing some slut in there, it's your balls." She whispers to herself, slowly twisting her key in the lock and opening the door.

She's quiet about it though. She's quiet and stealthy as she momentarily bends to thread her fingers through the handles of the Thai food bag, picking it back up. She's slow and quiet pushing the door closed, and she's quiet locking it back, heels soft-pattering merely a soft ruffle against the carpet. The apartment is quiet too, TV's off and everything's in its place.

It's strange. It shouldn't be, but everything coursing through Santana's veins as she quietly wanders towards the bedroom door says that it is.

As she lifts her right foot to take another step forward, she hears it.

A soft throaty giggle.

A soft, sultry, throaty giggle. Then a dull thud rumbles through the walls; all coming from beyond the bedroom door.

"Mother fucker." She angers under her breath, quietly reaching behind the black bookcase for the bat she's always kept there, whilst gently placing the bag of take-out on a nearby table.

Her trembling tan fingers curl around the bedroom door's handle, and her nostrils flare to accommodate the deep sustaining breath she draws into her lungs, before she cranks it down and aggressively nudges the door open.

The bat almost tumbles from her grasp at what she sees…

For a moment, everything's precarious. Blurred. But then she nods to herself in some sort of acceptance that this is really happening, and that's when she loses it...

"You piece of shit!" She hollers, striding over towards the bed, bat seized tightly within her two hands as she winds it back high over her shoulder.

Noah finally reacts; he jumps up, thin maroon duvet spilling from his sweat-sheened torso as he throws his hands up to absorb the bat's barbarity. Though he instantly jerks them away when Santana throws a particularly hard swing into them. They were going to be purple and fat for weeks. "Fuck! Santana, stop! I'm sorry!"

"How about you wipe that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look off of your face and stop me from decorating these walls with this whore's brains?" As if to punctuate her murderous mood, she abruptly flings the bat towards the wide-eyed, blonde-haired stranger sat in _her_ bed holding the sheets up around her pale body. The woman squeezes her cat-like blue eyes shut tightly, drops the sheets, and holds her hands up protectively in front of her face, but the bat meets brutally with the hard wall behind the headboard, leaving an evil, deep, dent.

"Holy shit!" Noah throws a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure that the woman's head is still on her shoulders, and when he turns back around, Santana's throwing her entire shoulder into a fist that's headed for his jaw.

His legs momentarily falter, feet stammering backwards towards the bed as he clutches his jaw in wince. Then, as if in need of confirmation for what's just happened, he glances at the woman lain beside him, whose mouth is hanging slightly agape. Acceptance settling in, he prods around his square jowl, drawing his fingers back in search of blood.

"Yeah, joto," Santana spits, Spanish twang adding a whole new level of hostility. "I just clocked you in the jaw. What?" She challenges with a shrug.

"Brittany, you need to get out of here, _fast_."

"_Brittany_?" Santana tries the name out on her tongue, disgusted by its flavors. "Is that your name, you little slut?"

"…Y-Yeah." The ruffle-haired blonde nods, unsurely. She cautiously slides out from beneath she sheets, grabs her white blouse from atop of the dresser and quickly shrugs it on, bleeding an apologetic gaze over the emotional woman stood across the room shaking, whilst she buttons herself up with stumbling fingers. "Look, I didn't know...I'm really sorry." She offers, hastily kicking into the pair of jeans she's just snatched up from the floor.

Santana slings an aggressive knife-like hand in the blonde's direction. "You think I wanna hear you talk, bitch? Right now, I don't even want you breathing. If you speak again, I'm going to punch your face inside out, got it?"

Brittany gulps the frog in her throat down, forgetting to breath and do almost everything else, except nod whilst blinking profusely.

Santana then allows her fiery eyes to flit back to the piece of shit sat cradling his jaw on the bed, his chest still heaving in heavy breaths from the shock of the assault. "What did I tell you, _puto_, **huh**?" She shouts. "I told you that if I ever found you cheating on me, I'd make sure they never found your body, right?"

"Santana," Noah sighs, long and hard. "I'm…" He shrugs one shoulder hopelessly when he realizes that all of the things he could say are what a woman's naked body is to a gay man, inadequate. "I'm…" He tries again, fails.

"A piece of shit." Santana finishes for him, nodding her head slowly around every syllable, like she's talking to the most retarded person on the planet. "Fuck you _cabron_. You told me you loved me on the phone just now, you fuck!" She says, voice crackling, like a worn vinyl record, under the weight of the tear-ache in her throat. "You'll _both _be hearing from me."

* * *

><p>Brittany sits the steaming mug down and perches herself on the corner of the desk. She reaches over, gently taps a few fingers to the broad muscular shoulder belonging to the man sat in front of the computer with his back to her.<p>

He twists around jumpily, letting out a long breath when he sees that it's just Brittany. "Hey." He says, not even looking at her, but instead glancing around the office.

She tilts her head to the side, softly asks. "You ok, Noah?"

"Yeah," He breathes out, finally giving her his eyes.

She nods at the mug sat on the desk, strings of steam belly-dancing up towards the ceiling from it. "I brought you some coffee."

He allows his face a smile, although it's slight thanks to the pain that thunders throughout his jowl when he attempts a rich smile. "Thanks Britt. Just what I need, coffee to keep me alert." He performs another quick glance around the office.

That's when Brittany places a gentle, concerned, hand to his bouncing knee. "Noah, what are you looking for?"

"Nothin'." He shrugs a shoulder indifferently, flashes a tiny smirk and spins back round in the swivel chair to his computer. "Everything's grand, Britt."

"Why didn't you tell me you were living with her?"

And just like that, Noah's pseudo 'everything's grand, Britt' shatters, leaving jagged little shards on the desk, which he's sure are reflecting his guilty face back at him.

"You told me you weren't serious. But, you were living with her." Her tone is neither abrasive nor accusatory. It's soft, curious, and almost fragile, as though just to blow on it would have it shrivel away.

Noah finally twists back around in his chair, looks his colleague in the eye, before shrugging somewhat sorrowfully. "I love her Britt. We just have our problems, but I do love her."

After a few moments, Brittany just shrugs a shoulder and nods, the heels of her shoes humming quietly against the side of the desk as she casually swings her toned legs. "I can see why you love her. She's like, totally beautiful."

Noah frowns, knowing that look from when he drools over dirty magazines. "Britt –"

"And she's that fiery kind of passionate, too."

He dips his head slightly, peering at Brittany under his eyelids, his features twisted with incredulous. "Seriously, are you really getting a boner for my ex girlfriend right now?"

Brittany quickly looks down at her lap, pushing Noah's shoulder when she sees there's not a tent in her skirt. "I don't have a penis, silly." She puts her palm to her chest, and pleads. "I'm a _girl_. Everybody knows girls don't have penises," A sultry smirk then carves out in the corner of her mouth. "Well not real ones anyway."

"Britt?"

"Huh?" She says, coming back from her girls-with-real-penises thought form.

"This is weird."

"This is life." Brittany counters, a playful smirk patterning her lips. "You know, I don't know why you even bothered with me when you had Santana waiting for you at home every night. She's mind-blowing, like, _beyond belief_." She dips her head on those last two words for emphasis.

Noah secures both of his hands on Brittany's shoulders, as if to bring her back down from the stars and ground her. "Brittany, she threw a bat at your head, intending to kill you – maim you for life, at the very least."

Satisfied that he's gotten Brittany to realize just how much vitriol Santana feels for her, he drops his hands back to his lap and leans back in the chair.

"Right, but she was upset, Noah." Brittany reasons. "I understand. I probably would've been the same."

"No, Santana's pretty much always like that." He says, sitting up and glancing around the office again, before settling his eyes back on Brittany. "Angry. If it's not one thing it's another. Do you know how exhausting it is to live with someone who's constantly pissed off? Apart from the angry sex she used to just spring on me, it's not a lot of fun."

Curiosity wriggles Brittany's eyebrows as she says, "Have you ever tried asking her why she's so upset all the time?"

"Britt, you're not getting it. She's never upset – if only. She's angry."

"But Noah, anger is just hurt with all the theatrics."

He eyes her in child-like wonderment for a moment, if not for anything else but for the profound simplicity of her statement.

"…So, have you ever asked her why she's always so upset?"

"No." He mumbles.

"Why not? You should always acknowledge how your partner's feeling, right?"

"No, she's not a _feelings_ kind of girl. She likes to watch UFC."

"Me FC? What's that mean?"

"No, not you you. The letter 'u'. You know UFC, right? The Ultimate Fighting Championship, where lean, muscular guys punch and kick chunks outta one another?"

"_Oh_, _UFC_. Right, gotcha. But, maybe she just likes to watch half-naked men get sweaty together."

"Nope. She likes to see them knocking each other out, because she's an angry person."

Brittany nods silently, before clasping her hands in the dip of her skirt and staring at them. "I almost feel like I should talk to her, or something. I mean, I knew you guys were together and I still let you tap this. I kinda feel like I owe her something," She looks up, "You know?"

Noah quickly scoots his chair towards the woman, eyes flitting around the office as he leans close to her and whispers a harsh: "Brittany are you crazy?"

A slow grin creeps over her features. "A little bit."

"She wanted to murder you last week. I still haven't worked out why she didn't. So just," He sucks in a large breath and blows it back out again. "Lay low and keep out of her way."

"So you want the woman you say you love to just keep going through life angry, without ever having talked to anybody about why she's so upset all the time?" Brittany asks, as though unimpressed with Noah's apathy.

"She's dangerous!" Noah finally spits it out. "Ok, she's the niece of Alsarvio Lopez, one of New York's biggest organized crime mobsters. All she has to do is make a phone call, and I could be gunned down at a distance without anybody even hearing the gunshot."

Brittany raises her eyebrows, "Shit, that's insane. Really?"

"Yeah, so just stay out of her way. It was a stupid idea for me to take you back to mine in the first place. I guess I just got lost in my boner." He sighs, frustrated with himself.

* * *

><p><strong>What do you think so far?<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**I want to thank everyone for your lovely comments! And for taking the time to comment. Thanks for the alerts too guys! Hope you have fun with this chapter too.**

Chapter Two:

"You want something to eat?"

"No." She bites back, determined to destroy the wooden surface of the kitchen table with her dark gaze, as she systematically rotates two small dice in her palm.

"A drink?"

"No."

Mercedes looks her friend over, clicks her tongue. "Come on Satan, you gotta eat. You vanish off the face of the earth for over week, and I come round and find you like _this_?" She slings a disgusted hand at the overflowing bin, and at various other hotspots of untidiness. "Come on, let me make you somethin'."

"No, what I need to do is find out where this bitch lives so that I can give her face the reconstructive surgery she's always wanted. Bitch looks like a God damn cat."

Mercedes places the milk down on the kitchen work surface, sighs sympathetically. "You know that little skank probably didn't even know you existed."

"Oh, she knew alright." Santana whisper-growls to herself, the long strands of hair fallen around her face quivering with her body's dark tremble. "I spoke to him on the phone five minutes before I caught them, heard the bitch say something in the background, but I wasn't sure. He told me he loved me and called me baby numerous times during the conversation. That means she was there, she knew about me, and still didn't give a fuck. Bitches like that aren't right," She slams the dice to the table, explodes up out of her chair so that the legs shriek ear-splittingly across the tiled floor, Mercedes momentarily covering her ears in wince. "So I'ma try to fix her with my fists."

"Santana, look at me." Mercedes pleads. "Santana!" She demands after a while.

The Latina finally lifts her glare up from the knot in the wooden table, something glassy about her dour coffee hues.

"Puck's the one that screwed up here, man. Let that little skank go about her business. It's not worth going back to jail over. The feds just sit around waitin' for you Lopez's to screw up; they'll love lockin' you away."

Santana stands there for a moment, the silence pregnant...

Suddenly, her entire face breaks and her shoulders slump.

Mercedes rushes over, encircling the shuddering smaller woman into arms.

The harder Santana shudders, the harder Mercedes rubs her hand up and down her back, and the tighter she holds her. "Shh. Everything's gonna be cool. His lyin' ass is gone. You'll be back to regular old Santana 'beat a bitch down' Lopez in no time, alright?"

Santana nods, sniffling into Mercedes shoulder. "Tell anyone I broke down like this, and I'll set fire to your weave."

Mercedes holds the smaller woman closer, smirks to herself. "Set fire to this weave, and I will rip every hair strand out your head so hard, your thoughts'll come with 'em."

There's another watery sniffle, then: "...Thanks."

"Anytime Satan. Now," She pulls away with a small smile, supportive hands still resting on the smaller woman's shoulder, "You better go sit your ass down, and get ready to eat this soup I'm about to make."

"Cool," Santana sniffs, dragging the inside of her forearm across her dripping eyes, "Let me just go make a quick phone call."

* * *

><p>He mounts the sofa, leans into the window sill, and slowly fiddles a slat in the blinds down, peaking out beyond the front garden.<p>

"Puck, relax. It's been over a week. If she was gonna do anything she would've done it by now."

The blinds slink back to their closed-eyed pose as Puck takes his finger from them and throws Finn a look over his shoulder. "You obviously don't know Santana, bro. Here." He turns around, extends the wrinkled five dollars in his hand out to his friend. "Get me some cigarettes and a bottle of vodka from the liquor store."

"But...I'm not going to the liquor store."

Puck sighs, ruffles the overgrown strands of his Mohawk. "Dude, come on man. I can't go out there, and I'm gasping for a cigarette."

"If it's this serious, maybe you should...go to the cops man." Finn suggests slowly, as if to slow it down will help it to sink into Puck's hard head easier.

"Man, I'm not going to the cops. That's a bitch move."

"What, and moving yourself into your best friend's apartment and jumping every time I so much as flip a light switch isn't?"

"Finn, come on."

Finn rolls his eyes and takes the money. "Rachel's gonna be home soon, so clean the dishes you've used." He says, shrugging on his jacket. "I don't need her bitchin' at me about you staying here again."

The moment he pulls open the front door and lifts his size eleven sneaker to step out into the unforgiving New York chill, there's a large – much larger than his own – gloved hand pressed stern to his chest, forcing him back inside the apartment. He stumbles the kind of stumble that'd make any grown man look stupid, shoulder crashing into the narrow hallway wall. And with his deficiency in anything concerning balance, he ends up on the floor, grimacing up into dark sunglasses, a spitefully sharp nose, and plump lips that are framed by a dark handle-bar mustache.

"Where is he?" The deep gravely voice rumbles through the walls.

"W-Who, uh, who are y-you t-talkin' about?"

The tall broad man stood in the doorway kicks the front door shut with the corner of his polished black shoe, crouches down next to the stuttering fool cowering on the floor. He sniffs with a cold nonchalance, and gently bumps Finn's quivering knee with his elbow, as if they're just two friends messing around. "If I gotta ask you again, there's gonna be a problem. Are you receiving me?" The man nods slowly, as if to hurry Finn's comprehension along. "So where is he?"

Finn feebly jerks his head in the direction of the lounge. "I-I-In there."

"Good man." The intruder slams his palm down on the cap of Finn's knee, rises to his feet and steps on through to the lounge.

Behind the sunglasses, his pebble-like black eyes veer around the room, stopping at the wide-open window and rattling blinds.

He smirks, taking out his phone, and quickly presses out a number, lifting it to his tan ear. "...Little bastard got out through the front window. You guys got him?"

"Don't you hear all that commotion? He's in the back of the van."

"I'll be out in two twos. Let me just make myself a sandwich, or somethin'." He says, eying the fridge and the dishes piled in the sink. "If I can find a clean plate, that is. Can't expect teach him a lesson on an empty stomach now, can we?"

* * *

><p>There are suddenly kids, everywhere, and even more of them seem to be pouring out of the double doors.<p>

Santana smiles at a few, slowly slips her brass knuckle clad fist behind her back and leans back into the building's wall, feigning casual, like she's not gonna have to walk home with blood spatter sprayings on her dark jacket in about ten minutes.

Patient as a detective tailing a mark, she waits, watches child after child burst out of the doors, flocking into the arms of one parent - sometimes even two.

They're lucky, especially the ones with both a mother and a father. A spare parent, or a parent to waste, as Santana had coined the phrase.

When the steady flow of children begins to lessen, Santana decides to approach the double doors.

As if scripted, she immediately spots her, blonde hair thrown up in a bun so loose that it's almost silly, loose yellow t-shirt and baggy grey sweats which spill over a little into white sneakers.

The litter of children spilling from the building quickly ceases altogether, until the only visible body moving around the small dance studio is Brittany's.

Fist still concealed behind her back, Santana steps into the doorway, stands there silently watching the slightly flush-faced blonde tidy up.

"Give me a reason why I shouldn't fuck you up right now."

Brittany's fingers still on her duffel bag's zipper. She slowly rises from her crouch and turns around. "Santana." She simply states.

"That's doesn't sound like a reason." Santana ventures inside then, pushes the door in behind her with a quiet but menacing click. She crosses the modest sized room until her face is _this _close to Brittany's. "Do you have any idea what I'm gonna do to you, princess?" She husks the whisper, jutting her chin out slightly, her deep dark discs narrowed up into sapphire blue.

Brittany bows her head. "Look, Santana, Noah's a total idiot for ever speaking to me, when he had such a beautiful woman already." She glances down at the laminate floor, mutters. "I'm really sorry about what happened. Here." She reaches down into the baggy pocket of her sweats, and when her hand re-appears, there's a pink lollipop in her palm. "Want a lollipop?"

Santana steps back a little, violently nods her head backwards and frowns at the blonde sideways. "You think complimenting me and presenting me with a lollipop is gonna stop me from killing you in here today, _perra_?" The exclamation mark on the end of that comes in the manner with which she slaps Brittany's hand away, the small stick of candy rolling out across the floor.

Brittany just stares at the raven-haired woman for a moment.

That anger Noah's told her about; she can see it, feel it wafting off of the smaller Latina in large oppressive waves. It intrigues her, breathes sadness and unimaginable curiosity into her, like when a particularly beautiful flower calls you, and you just have to go investigate it. So she asks, asks the question nobody else ever bothers to. "Why are you _so_ angry?"

Santana's jaw clenches, and she walks back up on the tall blonde, trying to get her to cower, or at least step backwards.

But Brittany's sneakers don't move an inch, and it calls a sick smirk about Santana's lips.

"You're one of those..." She clicks her thumb and middle finger together repeatedly, running disgusted eyes up and down Brittany's body, as she waits for the right descriptive to come to her. When it does, her fingers perform one last loud snap, before she says, "You're one of those _stupid _bitches, aren't you?"

Brittany's brows knit. "Hey!" She reprimands. "I'm _not_ stupid."

It's what Santana wants; a rise out of this whore. She smirks. "That's right, feel froggy – hell, leap!" She encourages. "I will beat the breaks off of you." She tells it slowly, shoulders rolling with a small shiver, as if the notion pleasures her right down to the tips of her toes. "Let's see who's gonna teach those kids how to dance when you're a vegetable."

Brittany rolls her eyes, bends down to grab her duffel bag, hoisting it up over her shoulder when she's vertical again. "You could call me stupid all day long if you want," She shrugs a shoulder, hopeless, "I get that you're pissed at me and at Noah – and rightfully so, but I'm telling you I'm sorry. You could pull those knuckledusters out from behind your back and floor me right now, but, you're only going to feel better until the next time you think of this whole situation. Then you're gonna feel miserable all over again." She says softly.

Santana glances around, acknowledges all of the mirrors for the first time, and pulls her fist out from behind her back. It feels like she's lost the upper hand a little, out-smarted by someone she's just labeled stupid.

"I want to explain my behavior to you. I mean I know you must have a lot of unanswered questions going around in your head. We could go to a Starbucks or something, I'll buy you a coffee and a muffin, you could bring your brass knuck's, and," Brittany nods, once, to herself, "I'll explain everything."

"Are you mentally deficient or something?"

The blonde opens her mouth to respond, but Santana quickly shakes her head, not finished. "You really think I wanna sit down in a civilized manner and drink coffee with you? – And wait a second," She shakes her head again, this time more violently, brows catapillaring with a deep frown. "Are you fucking _hitting_ on me?" The realization and disbelief loading the end of her question sees her voice go up in pitch almost ten notches.

Brittany dares to grin, although it's vague, and whispers. "Like I said, I really don't know how Noah even managed to see me, when he already had you."

Suddenly feeling invaded by their proximity, Santana promptly steps away from the blonde, the brass knuck's slipping a little down her knuckles as the abruptness of the situation tugs her balled fist loose. She runs a hand halfway through her hair and leaves it there, staring off into the far wall, breathing an incredulous: "Oh my God. This is so fucked up." She then drops her hand back to her side, and peers at Brittany, now seeing the situation for what it really is. "I should beat you to a pulp, you dyke, but I'm afraid you'd enjoy the contact."

"I'm not a dyke." Brittany states, somewhat softly, and it pours fuel on the Latina's fire. "And labels are for tinned food, like tuna."

"You're up in here trying to take a chica out for coffee and a God damn muffin! I say that makes you a fucking fruit."

"I don't even really like fruit. I'm attracted to people, not gender."

"I don't give a fuck!" Santana roars, right back up in Brittany's face again. "Save the public service announcement for somebody who gives a fuck."

As if remembering herself, she suddenly steps back, whispers a charged: "It's your lucky day. You know why? Because I don't think beating your brains out is worth the jail time anymore. So here's what's gonna happen: I'm gonna continue to live my life in New York City, and if I _ever_ see your vacuous face again, it'll be the last time anybody does, got it? Nod for me."

"Santana –"

"No, no, no." She cuts her off with an stern but calm wave of the hand. "I said nod. Now."

"Fine." Brittany sighs, as though it's an inconvenience, later giving a small, stiff, nod.

"Great." Santana says, steely eyes conveying everything she's capable of if their agreement should ever fall under breach, as they boar up ominously into sapphire blue.

* * *

><p><strong>What do you guys think?<strong> **Still with me?**


	3. Chapter 3

**Have I told you guys how amazing you are just recently? You kind of are, like, it's a fact. I think I read it somewhere in an Encyclopedia. Thanks you so much for your response and interest in this story. It's really appreciated. To those of you who think Santana is funny, I must confess to having a few cheeky giggles whilst I write her dialogue. Sometimes anger's just funny.  
><strong>

**Massive shout out to louicorn, who graced me with a few tips on the mechanics of my dialogue : ) As to whether I've managed to implement them correctly is a different story altogether, but I hope everyone enjoys this anyway.**

Chapter Three:

"So go out with him, 'specially if he's payin'."

"I don't know, 'Cedes." Santana holds up her hands. "He's ok, but I don't know if I could handle the fact that he's balding up here." She takes a demonstrative hand to the crown of her head, taps it.

Mercedes chuckles, shaking her head. "Well at least you're getting out there, dating again." She deadpans, reaches over to flick her cigarette's ash into a nearby ashtray. "All I seem to be attracting at the moment is females."

Santana's eyes grow in a beat of silence. "What?" She begins to bounce up and down on the sofa, shaking Mercedes' knee with child-like eagerness. "Tell me the deets – how come I haven't heard about this before? I wants those deets."

"Girl, how many have you had?" Mercedes chuckles, pointedly prying the can of beer from Santana's grasp and sitting it on the coffee table. "You're about two seconds away from losin' your horns, you're so pink an fluffy right now."

"No changing the subject, Ellen _Degenerate_."

Mercedes' head slightly leans itself to the side, her features still coloured in disbelief over the recent ordeal. "Well, I went shoppin' a few days ago, and some woman comes up to me, asking for the time."

Santana smirks, curls her feet beneath herself and leans back into the sofa. "This shit sounds funny already."

"So I gave her the time, and trying to be discreet about it, she starts following me round the shop. Now, I thought she was either tryin' to rob me, or pin a shoplift on a sista, but just as I was about to hop up outta there, she stops me, talkin 'bout 'Can I get your number?'"

Santana throws her head back, the laughter rippling through her sides causing her to cradle her clenching stomach.

When she finally begins to regain herself, she throws her tussled black mane back off of her face, quickly tucks a strand or two behind her ear, and palms her hanging open mouth. "What did you say to her?" her mirthful voice vibrates through the gaps in her tan fingers. "Tell me you snatched the bitch up, right there and then."

"I didn't do that, but I _did _write the number of my mom's church down on the piece of paper she gave me. Then I got the hell on outta there." Without so much as a glance at her friend, she raises her palm up in her direction, drops it when Santana hi-fives it, the loud snap shrieking throughout the small living room.

The Latina twists slightly then, cuddles up into the sofa's cushions, and settles into a contemplative stare through the TV. "Yeah," she breathes. "I think they're breeding them on farms, or something. These god damn fags are everywhere these days. Just look at what went down with the slut Noah was screwing behind my back."

"Mmhmm." Mercedes nods, cheeks hollowing in a particularly long draw on her cigarette. "Grandma used to say it was one of the signs of the last days. And by the way," she says, disappearing behind grey swirls of smoke as she gently nudges Santana, "I was really impressed that you didn't beat that girl a new vagina."

"Yeah," Santana sighs, long and drawn out. She fidgets, dusts something that isn't there off of her thigh, and focuses her absent gaze at the can of beer sat on the table. "I would've." – She quickly interrupts herself to nod emphatically at Mercedes, as if to convince – "But..." She scratches the point of her nose, feigns a deep contemplation of the topic when she feels the pressure of Mercedes suspicious gaze waft at the side of her face. "When I thought about everything – especially the fact that she seemed to have the mental capacity of a six-year-old – something said 'Stop, this isn't worth going back to jail over.' I mean, if I _had _started to pound on her, I wouldn't have stopped until I saw her soul rise up out of her body. Manslaughter's a long stretch, you know? And there's no dick in a women's prison."

"...You ok, Satan?"

"Uh, y-yeah...Why?" Santana slips her arms around her mid-section, feels like she has to with the look that her friend's giving her.

"It's just that the jail time's never really bothered you before..."

"Maybe I'm turning over a new leaf, huh? Just drop it!" she snaps, reaching forward to snatch her can up from the table, elbow skyward as she throws her head back and pours the fizzy alcohol down her throat.

"You're the one who brought it up, and then you started actin' shiftier than a mother fucker."

Santana grudgingly gulps the beer down, and slams the empty can to the table, watching it rock from side to side through a deep frown. "Whatever."

Mercedes rests her cigarette in the ashtray and turns so that she's facing her heated friend fully. She just stares for a few seconds, and then she speaks: "It's me you're talkin' to now, girl. You aint gotta edit the truth around _me_. I don't give a fuck," – she waves a quick hand from Santana's face down to her lap – "about this front you put on."

"It's not a damn front. It's who I am; who Santana Maria Lopez is. The fiery Latina who'll rock your jaw into the next milky way on any given day."

"Well look at you." Mercedes slowly shakes her head, like a disappointed mother. "Talkin' 'bout yourself in third person, like you not even here. A damn character out of a book or somethin'."

Santana's shoulders heave up, and deflate with the exhalation of a sigh. "Why's it so hard to believe that the reason I didn't smash her was 'cause she was dizzier than a mother fucker, I didn't think she was worth it, and I didn't wanna go back to jail?"

"Because I know you, S. It's always all or nothin'. Because when you wanna beat a bitch's face in for disrespecting you, it's not like you to stop and give two damns about the jail time, especially if you've already gone to the effort of finding out where the broad works, and you're up in her face, wearing some knuck's."

Santana shrugs a shoulder, folds her arms even tighter around her stomach. "So what, because I didn't go through with popping her neck, you think I've gone soft?"

"No, that's not it at _all._" Mercedes sighs, later kissing her teeth. "Man, you know what, just forget it."

"No! I fight _every _day of my life, M. Whether it's fighting to come to terms with the fact that my folks got murdered, or arguing with the bitch at the liquor store for givin' me the wrong change, or the fact that I'm...the fact that..." She pauses, blinks entirely too many times, before she briefly closes her eyes and quickly shakes her head. "Look, I fight! _Every day_," she says, a pained expression shadowing her features as her eyelids fall shut once more.

A moment passes before she slowly lifts them to say, "Sometimes I just...sometimes I get tired. So she got away, this time, provided that she stays outta my face so I don't have to think about her, or even know that she exists."

It's only half of the truth, and Mercedes knows it, but she can feel how the air surrounding them has thickened, and she decides to ease her fingers up off of all those button Santana's always warning her not to press. "Look, if that's _really _the case, then that's cool, S. The truth, that's all I ever want from you, girl. You aint gotta sugar coat anythin' with me. We roll upfront with each other. That's how it's always been, right?"

"Yeah...upfront," Santana mutters, bowing her head to stare solemnly into her lap.

"That's right. So don't close off around me, because I _see_ you," Mercedes says, leaning to the side to affectionately bump Santana's shoulder with her own, a trying smile floating over her lips.

"No, don't nudge me like we're tight. I still have hate in my heart for you right now," Santana mumbles, a smile she's choosing to suppress warring its way up and taking over her lips.

"Stop trippin', you love it when we have these talks." Mercedes chuckles, nudges her grumpy friend again.

"I'm never coming round here again."

* * *

><p>Her lips draw out in a strong pout. "Is it bad that I kind of wanna run into Santana again?"<p>

Artie wheels himself around the couch with well-practiced flare, parks at the side of the arm chair that his roommate is slumped in. "Well..." His eyes lift into a pensive gaze with the ceiling for a moment, then he nods his head. "Yes, Brittany, considering she promised to have the mob take care of you if she ever saw you again."

The blonde's pout grows. "She's soo hot." She whines. "I wish you'd seen her. Your legs would've started working again, she was so hot."

"So she's Jesus now?"

"No. Jesus wasn't hot – was he?"

"I doubt Jesus was even real."

Brittany gasps. "Don't say that. What if he was real and his ghost hears you? He'll regret dying for mankind's sins, and then I'll feel bad."

Artie rolls his eyes and pushes his glasses up. "Well, according to the things you've told me about this Santana girl, she sounds like the type to wheel me into a small lake, just for being your roomie. Not. Very. Jesus-like." He nods, once, as if to put a cute full stop on it.

"She was perfect," Brittany mutters ruefully to herself, glancing down to pull at a loose thread in the couch's fabric.

Artie holds up a hand, begins to tally each finger off: "Mobster bloodline, aggressive, violent, homophobic, _and _the victim in your affair with Puck. Yes," he nods, dropping his hand back into his lap."Just perfect."

"...I guess you're right," Brittany quietly mumbles. "I think I'm getting like this because Lord Tubbington passed away and I'm having lady cramps right now." She smoothes her hand down her taught stomach, stares at it when she feels it gurgle against her palm. "She didn't wanna hurt me, you know, Artie? Otherwise she would've. Like, if she was _that _mad, _nothing _would've been able to stop her, you know? I have no idea why she chose not to jump me. I just know that she chose not to, and that's what I'm focusing on."

"But she _can _hurt you, Brittany, and that's all that counts."

"I know where she lives. Like, before I quit working at the office, Puck said he'd left the apartment they were sharing, sounded like she's still living there though. Maybe I could buy something from the costume shop and show up at her door claiming to be the gas lady or something." A slight smirk grows in her features as she considers the ridiculousness of it. "I'd check her gas," she giggles, imagining Santana rubbing her stomach with a frown before letting one rip.

"I'm so relieved that you're joking about that."

"I've gotta go teach the kids in an hour. I'll decide what I'm gonna do whilst I'm out."

Artie's relief shrivels, leaving an ugly frown in his brow. "What do you mean, you'll decide what you're gonna do? Brittany, you can't go anywhere near that apartment."

"I won't be there long." She smiles.

"No!" Artie emphatically shakes his head, and waves his hands across one another, stern. "She sounds really dangerous. What if she's not feeling so gracious this time, and attacks you? I can't do anything." He gestures at his chair helplessly. "Except call the pigs. And by then it may be too late."

"Then, at least I'd get to be with Lord Tubbington and Jesus."

Artie deadpans, mouth hanging open...

"No, no! I'm kidding." Brittany quickly waves it off with a grin. "I do miss Tubbers though," she adds sadly.

A few beats of silence play out...

Brittany suddenly lifts her leg over the arm rest of the chair, elongating it in the air in a manner only befitting a dancer. She stares up at the pale toes she's wiggling. "Artie?"

Gazing up at his roommate's luxuriously long extended limb, he's only coherent enough for a lacking: "Hm?"

"Where's that voice changer you got for Halloween?"

He snaps out of his daze, frowns. "Why?"

"If I put on a mask and hook the voice changer up with it, I could talk to Santana without getting her mad. I mean, the deal was that if she ever saw my face again, she'd kidnap me for hours of deep conversation and passionate sex – wait..." She trails, holding up a finger, lost in a tangle of what actually happened and what she's watched play out in her head thousands of times. "The deal was that if she ever saw my face again," she says, slowly combing through the beautiful Latina's words in her mind, "she'd get mad. So, what if I just put on a mask?"

"What in the world would you say to her? She'll be creeped out by the mask, _and _by the fact that you sound like Stephen Hawking. Plus..." His words skid to a halt, and he grimaces slightly, in anticipation of his roommate pouting at what he's about to say. "...I don't think she wants to talk to you very much," he tells her, feathering his tone so that it's as soft as possible without having him sound like Michael Jackson. "I think you should just leave well alone, Britt, especially since you said you haven't been able to contact Puck recently."

"But, I have to try, Artie," she groans, like trying is the most obvious thing she can do in this situation. Like walking away isn't. "I still think about her and it's been, like, two months." She finally lets her leg fall, swinging it gently as it hangs over the arm rest. "I have to try."

* * *

><p>For the better part of thirty minutes now, she's been sat, chair drawn right up to the kitchen table, staring at the small shiny gold box that she found on her doorstep whilst collecting her letters earlier. The box looks harmless enough, the thin gleaming red ribbon traveling around it giving off a Christmas vibe.<p>

"This better not blow up in my face," she husks hoarsely to herself, sleep still cloaking her true voice.

With all the caution in the world, she slowly reaches her index finger out towards this suspicious box, quickly ramming it with her fingertip and shielding her face in case it explodes with a poisonous gas, or blows her and her apartment sky high. But there's no hiss or explosion, just a shiny gold box sat on the kitchen table, looking slightly perplexed as to why it's just been shoved.

She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth, mumbles, "And there it is ladies and gentleman; that's what growing up being a Lopez will do for your paranoia," as she snatches up the box, and flicks off its lid, all caution abandoned.

_Because nobody else on this planet – except maybe Jesus, 'cause you know, he's magical and everything – could look as stunning as you do whilst wearing a pair of knuckledusters _: -)

Santana runs her squint over the fine handwriting scribbled to the note over and over again, before lifting it at one of the corners to reveal the gleaming silver chain beneath. Placing the note to the side, she pulls the seemingly never-ending chain from the box, until the moderately-sized knuckleduster pendant hanging from it is swaying gently between her two eyes, shimmering with the wash of sunlight spraying in through the blinds. "Brittany," she whispers in realization.

Her lips suddenly screw, and she slams the chain to the table, jumping up and racing into the bedroom. She's on her knees in front of the bed before she's even slowed her maddened gait, frantically feeling around underneath it until her fingers brush with a box much larger than the one out there sat on the kitchen table. She drags it out into the light, and bats the lid off, pulling out her silver and black Beretta 92.

"Alright, you wanna play, bitch?" she says, thumbing back the weapon's hammer. "Let's play."

* * *

><p><strong>Thoughts? And thanks for reading.<strong>


	4. Chapter 4

**Hello again everyone.**** I know I sound like a broken record but, I'm literally astounded by the response that this fic has gotten. Thank you to all of you :)**

**Also, to Val, you're spot on about Santana ;)  
><strong>

**I hope you guys enjoy this one too.  
><strong>

Chapter Four

A small hand suddenly slips into hers and begins to tug, repeatedly. "Brittany! Brittany! My daddy's here now!"

"Ok," Brittany giggles, sifting through the mess of CD's on top of the stereo system for all those that belong to her. "Just a second, Stacey."

"He really wants to meet you after all the things I told him you taught me," the little girl beams, green eyes luminous with excitement's signature sparkle as she tugs her teacher's soft hand once more, pointing her finger at the double doors. "Come on, he's right outside!"

Brittany quickly hits the stop button on the stereo system, and Chris Brown's 'Beautiful People,' ceases its pounding in the small studio. She sweeps her CD's into her open duffel bag and zips it up, hoisting the straps further up her shoulder. Then she smiles down at the freckle-faced little girl. "Right. _All_ set, my little peppercorn."

Stacey's legs frolic through the air with her skip as she drags her dance teacher out through the double doors, the icy breeze almost knocking the two of them over when it hits them for the first time.

"Daddy, look!" she eagerly pats her father's upper thigh, "It's Brittany. She taught me how to do all those cool moves I showed you and Daniel last night."

The fair-haired man playfully ruffles his daughter's hair, and nods Brittany a smirk, his gaze traveling up every bit of her long frame to rest on her face. "Nice to meet you. Stacey's always talking about you." He suddenly leans in close, uses his hand as a screen to hide his lips from his daughter, whispering, "Sometimes, I think her mom gets a little jealous."

"…Well," Brittany trails, waving off the compliment with a grin.

"Although, now I'm a little nervous. The little one never said you were _this _pretty."

Brittany glances down at her attire, drags the back of her hand across her clammy forehead. "Thanks, but I don't feel very pretty at the moment." She lifts her arm, gives the dark stain living in the armpit of her blue 'I'm pretty sure Dr Pepper is a Dentist' t-shirt a sniff, and wafts her hand in front of her nose, an almost pained expression taking over her face. "I think I need a shower first?"

Stacey swings both her and her teacher's clasped hands and whines, "You're _always_ pretty."

"I'm siding with my daughter on this one," her father smirks.

Brittany shrugs a shoulder. "Thanks."

The man then turns to his little girl, dropping to a crouch before her. She giggles as he draws the pad of his finger down her nose and says, "Why don't you go wait by the car. I'll be with you in a second, alright princess?"

"Ok daddy," Stacey nods, reluctantly letting go of Brittany's hand, only deciding to compensate for the loss of contact at the last minute by way of throwing her arms around her teacher, squeezing with ever bit of strength that her six-year-old frame is capable of. "Bye Brittany," she mumbles into the blonde's stomach.

"Bye, bye Stacey. See you soon."

Stacey skips off, and suddenly Brittany's alone with her student's father, the air charged with something discernible yet elusive.

"So…" he begins, peering up at a bird soaring through the sky, "This is a little strange, and I totally don't want to come off as some predatory pervert here – especially since this is the first time we're meeting – but, I don't know, do you wanna maybe grab dinner some time?"

"Hey." Brittany gently touches his arm, her sapphire blue eyes holding slight pity. "I don't think that bird can hear you from all the way up there."

He chuckles and refocuses his emerald eyes at her. "No, I mean – I _meant_ – you and I?"

"_Ooh_! – but wait, aren't you already with Stacey's mom?"

"What, Hillary?" he asks, as if it's the most obscene notion his ears have ever encountered.

Brittany nods.

"No, no, no." He emphatically shakes his head, waves a dismissive hand through the space between them. "We're not together anymore, haven't been for over three years now."

"Alright, _well_," she drawls, "I would say yes but, I kind of already have my eye on someone else at the moment."

He bows his head, staring at the concrete and letting out a lengthy breath. "Of course. Lucky guy."

"No, no. She's a woman," Brittany quickly corrects him. She smirks to herself as she thinks of Santana, adding an almost boastful: "And she's totally hot."

"Uhh…"

"Like, you wouldn't believe how hot she is. Like, God was totally just showing off when he dropped her off in her mother's stomach."

"Uhh…ok then. Well…she's a lucky woman then?"

"She hasn't gotten lucky just yet," Brittany grins, her suddenly hooded eyelids giving away her steamy thoughts. "But I'm working on it, you know?"

"Uhh, ok." He gulps, fighting off the image of Brittany and some gorgeous model type rolling around in bed together. "Well, good luck. She'd be a fool not to take you up on your offer." He glances over his shoulder towards the black pickup truck that his daughter is gently bumping her bottom against, watching his little girl sip on a drink that she must've gotten out of the car. "I better be going, Brittany, but it was really nice to meet you."

"Wait, I didn't get your name. What was it again?"

He looks at Brittany, smiles warmly at her. "Alan."

"Bye then, Alan. Drive safely."

"Wait, do you want a lift home, or..?"

Brittany gifts him a rich smile, but shakes her head. "No thanks. I only live, like, fifteen minutes away, and I'm not gonna lie," she blushes and momentarily bows her head through a dorky grin, somewhat embarrassed about her impending confession, "I enjoy pulling faces at people who're getting their hair cut through the barber shop window."

A throaty chuckle rolls through Alan's broad shoulders. "I can see why Stacey's always talking about you. There's this erm…" He pauses, waits for the perfect descriptive to fall into his lap. "Light! Yeah," he nods. "There's this light about you."

"Aww. That's so sweet. Thank you, Alan."

"It's no problem. Alright then, so I'll see you."

"Bye."

From behind the building just across the street, Santana watches them wave one another off. She waits until the man and the little girl disappear inside of the black pickup and speed off, the only evidence that they were ever there: the mist of smoke vanishing up into the air from the exhaust pipe.

"Finally," she mutters to herself, drawing the ribs of her coat closed over the weighty weapon stuffed into the waist of her jeans.

.

.

.

Brittany is happily plodding along the quiet street when she thinks she hears someone behind her. Her gait slows just enough for her to throw a quick glance over her shoulder.

No one is there.

She shrugs, resuming her stride, thoughts of where the pee goes when people who live in trailers flush their toilets clouding her mind…

"'Sup Britt-Britt."

At the sound of that smooth husky voice, Brittany turns around. She blinks a succession of times, as if to question what her eyes are showing her. Then Santana smiles, and Brittany has to be sure that this isn't some illusion that the gnomes at the bottom of her garden have put together, in order to get her back for accidentally stepping on the one with the red hat and breaking him whilst she was tipsy all those months back. She has to be sure, so through a squint, she asks, "Santana?"

"In the flesh."

In that moment, Brittany's eyes draw in on the jewelry around the Latina's neck. She smiles right up to the corners of her eyes, takes the few necessary steps towards her crush, and affectionately runs her thumb's pad across the knuckleduster pendant. "You liked it," she states, softly.

It takes everything that Santana can muster not to flinch back from the contact, and somehow she manages another cloying smile. "Yeah. I love it. How about we walk and talk, huh? I know this park we can go to that's not too far from here."

Brittany cheerily bounces on the spot once, all but squealing. "Sure."

The two of them fall into a stride beside one another, Santana just a little in front.

"I'm sorry if I smell a little sweaty. Those kids will work you into the ground if you let them."

Santana humors the other woman a lifeless chuckle, doesn't give her her gaze though. "I'm sure they're relentless."

"They're awesome!"

"I'm sure they are."

"So," – Brittany hoist the slipping straps of her bag back up her shoulder – "did you wanna talk about what happened with Noah? _Or_ did you wanna discuss the details of this date I'm going to take you out on?" She let's a grin lift her satin-pink wind-kissed cheeks, fights the urge to slip her fingers through the other woman's and have their palms meet in an intimate clutch. "I promise to make it sickeningly romantic," she sing-songs. "Like, you'll be vomiting love hearts."

That's when Santana's mask slips. "I'm not some fag! Fucking cut all the God damn dykey shit out! I don't wanna hear it!"

Brittany peers at the Latina's back, all cheer gone, and she slowly shakes her head, clicking her tongue like a parent would should their child continue to disappoint them. "I thought we already discussed that we don't use those kinds of labels for human beings?"

Santana feel's her gun's snout rubbing against the top of her thigh as the two of them walk in strained silence, and it's a comfort to her in this moment specifically. Heaving in an abundance of air and steadily blowing it back out, she rolls her eyes and says, "I wanna talk about what went down with you and my piece of shit ex _boy_friend."

"Oh…"

"Have you spoken to him since?" Santana asks, not bothering to listen for the response, because she knows. She knows good and well that nobody has seen or spoken to Noah for two months now.

"I haven't spoken to him, no. Santana, look, I didn't wanna hurt you. He told me you guys weren't exclusive, and then I find out you guys were living together the whole time."

They round the corner of the street in a silence that's nine months pregnant, the seemingly cool and collected Latina leading them towards the dilapidated gates of an overgrown abandoned field.

"Santana, I'm sorry."

_Bitch, be the fuck quiet. This shit isn't even about Noah anymore._

Once through the gates, everything suddenly changes, almost as though the Devil has just snapped his long ugly fingers; Santana rushes Brittany into the close-by alleyway, shoves her up against the wall and holds her there, palm over the blonde's soft lips. She quickly reaches through the curtain of her coat and jerks her gun free from her waist, pressing its eye into the dancer's lower abdomen. She feels the blonde's stomach tense, every muscle twitch traveling down the gun and into her hand. "Any last words?"

The duffel bag tugs down the length of Brittany's arm and hits the concrete as she fidgets, mumbling something hot and breathy into Santana's palm.

"Feel free to scream your little blonde heart out. Nobody ever comes here. And nobody's gonna hear me blow your little dancer stomach out through your back," Santana whispers low and ominous, deep dark discs narrowed up stern into sapphire blue. She slowly eases her hand away from Brittany's flustered lips, because for all the shit that Brittany makes her feel, Santana wants to hear a tremble in the blonde's voice. Needs to hear it. "Talk," she demands, voice just a quiet husk.

"Does this mean you didn't like the necklace, 'cause I can get you another one if –"

"Oh, you think I'm playin'?" Santana wraps her fingers around the necklace and rips it from around her neck, flinging it to the concrete without ever breaking eyes with the blonde. "How about I blow your guts into your nose with a little help from Beretta here? Show you who's playin'."

"Santana, it's already that time of month. I _really_ don't wanna have to deal with any more blood," Brittany groans, but even that's anticlimactic to Santana's ears. There's no tremble to it, nothing that would indicate the fear that her ears crave. It's just a casual groan, like the one a college student releases when he realizes that he's forgotten a few books at home.

"Any. Last. Words?" Santana asks again, pressing the gun's eye further into the other woman's stomach with every syllable.

"Well…" Brittany glances up, twists her lips to the side. "I _would_ see you in five, Lord Tubbington, but I'm really happy with my life at the moment. I'm sorry."

Santana frowns, following Brittany's skyward gaze. All she sees is a sky sporting scarlet and lavender swirls. "Seriously, who in the _fuck, _are you talking to?"

It happens as quickly as a thumb to the eye; Brittany's left hand shoots out to grab Santana's wrist at a low side angle, and the dancer bends her knees slightly, using the leverage of pushing back up to forcefully crank the gun's eye away from her body with her right hand.

"Oh my – fffuucck!" Santana shrieks out in agony, the joint of the finger she'd been resting on the trigger twisting sideways inside of the defiant trigger-cage at a cruel unforgiving angle.

Hands still entwined with both the weapon and Santana's limp hand, Brittany uses her chest and shoulders to gently push Santana back into the wall opposite, pressing into her whilst giving the cold weapon one last freeing tug. It lets out a menacing sound as it smacks the concrete a safe distance away.

Their faces are _this_ close, and the only noise to be heard is their combined symphony of jagged pants…

"Are you ok?" Brittany suddenly whispers, slowly shifting her hand between their bodies to wrap it soothingly around the Latina's throbbing finger.

Santana's eyes remain clenched shut in grimace, the back of her head resting against the wall, and if not for the way that her nostrils repeatedly grow and shrink as she greedily draws in breath upon breath, one might've deemed her a doll.

"I said are you alrig –"

"Ugh! Shut the fuck up!" Santana grunts in an explosion of anger, pain, and humiliation, her eyes still fastened tightly. "I'm not fucking deaf!"

"…Well, you weren't saying anything, and I was worried." Brittany states, softly.

Santana slowly but surely lifts her eyelids after a few seconds, her prickling water-glossed eyes meeting the gentlest sapphire blue she's ever known…heartbreakingly so. In that moment, the cacophony of pain searing throughout her finger mutes, and with her good hand she snatches a greedy handful of Brittany's bun, quickly pushing off of the wall and headbutting the blonde with a kiss that's a chaos of tongue, teeth and lips, simply because – in this moment – it seems like the most natural thing in the world for her to do.

Tactless and frantic, Brittany's lips slide to the corner of Santana's plump, bruised mouth, leaving a mess of saliva. She presses brief, hurried, kisses down to Santana's jaw, and then dips her head to slowly draw the flat of her soft wet tongue up the length of the Latina's wondrously smooth tan neck.

Santana's eyes flutter from open to closed to open again, a hot shudder rippling throughout her sternum – and in the next second she's releasing the back of Brittany's head, shoving the blonde backwards with all the power she can get behind her forearm. "Don't fucking touch me, you dyke. I'm nothing like you," she attempts to roar, but it just comes out a teary whimper. She doesn't make eye contact with the _woman_ who was just all over her – can't!

She can't.

Brittany lifts a tentative sneaker to step forward. "Santana –"

"No! Stay the fuck back!" Santana raises her voice, blinking at the concrete profusely as she vigorously rubs Brittany's taste off of her lips with the back of her hand, the friction almost causing a fire.

"Just…" Santana momentarily closes her eyes and sniffs, whispering a desperate, "Stay the hell away from me."

* * *

><p><strong>Thoughts? And thanks for reading.<strong>


	5. Chapter 5

**You guys fucking ROCK! I never expected to generate this much interest in this fic. Thank you everyone! I love that some of you guys found the last chapter hot. **

***Cough* I was slightly hot under the collar after writing it! ***Cough*** :P**

**To Ilbp, I have no idea how I'm doing it every chapter. I just write what I would want to read about, I suppose. Glad you're vibing it though : ) Thank you.**

**OnTheEdgeWithYou94, please don't explode, because I'm not cleaning you up :P Thanks for commenting.**

**I apologize for the shortness of this chapter, but I just wanted to have this scene exist in its own space.**

**I hope you continue to enjoy this :D**

Chapter Five

She balls her fist around the duvet and drags it up to her neck with a frustrated huff. Another small hiccup jerks her shoulders as she repeatedly snivels and mops her leaking eyes with a tissue, before scrunching it up and tossing it across the room. It kites through the air, floating to the carpet three meters short of the bin, just like every other before it...

It's too quiet, much too quiet, and her thoughts and fears are too loud. Much too loud. For a moment, she thinks she understands the insanity known to plague mental patients, and it's too much. Far too noisy, far too chaotic, and far too vivid.

"Ugh!" she grunts, throwing her body into a roll that sees her on the other side of the bed. She blindly pats the surface of the bedside cabinet, her fingers fumbling over stray hair clips and bottles of half-empty perfume – everything but what she's actually looking for. "Where the fuck did I put the remote? Don't play with me today, I swear!" she sniffles.

Just then, there's a dull rumble.

Santana's fumbling hand immediately stills, her brows knitting. Careful not to knock her stiff swollen finger on anything, she sits up against the headboard, head slightly dipped as she listens carefully for a repeat of the sound.

It's just pure silence for a moment or two, until the dull rumble returns, this time more insistent.

She quickly rubs at her damp eyes, sniffs away the last of the tear-induced mucus fogging inside of her nostrils, and scoots to the edge of the bed, just sitting there collecting herself with deep breaths.

Eventually she stands, joints clicking as she crosses the bedroom and steps out into the lounge.

There's another rumble, except it's not a rumble and it's not dull anymore. It's a crisp knocking, and just as suspected, it's coming from the other side of the front door.

In one last attempt to fix her disheveled appearance, Santana runs her hand through her silk black mane, sucks in a lungful of air and blows it out of balloon cheeks, before turning the key in the lock.

The door is open six inches when long blonde hair, flowing over the shoulders of a light grey sports jacket, comes into Santana's view, and her instinct to slam the door shut is instant, but Brittany's already got her sneaker wedged between the door, and her arm extended through the gap, a bag of ice cubes dangling from her ivory fingers.

Santana smacks the small pack of ice to the floor, something in her chest aching at Brittany's innate yet undeserved consideration for her. It's too much, and so she pushes against the door with every morsel of strength that she can. But with one of her hands sporting a tender, expanding, finger, it's not enough to get it to shut completely. She quickly spins, digging her toes into the carpet and driving her back against the door.

But Brittany's strong, unexpectedly so, and the door just rattles back and forth, caught in a stalemate between the two forces.

Santana rests the back of her head against the door, and scrunches her eyes shut, like if she holds them that way long enough this reality will vanish.

It doesn't.

"I thought I told you to stay the hell away from me?" she growls, voice fluctuating in both strong and faint waves under the weight of her threatening tears. She quickly sniffs them away. "Why can't you just leave a bitch alone?"

The reply comes soft. "I just wanna know that you're ok, Santana. Is your finger ok? I mean, I totally tried not to break it when I followed through on the disarm, but..." Brittany pauses, and when her voice returns, it's lost its light; glum. "You looked like you were in lots of pain."

There's silence...

"I wasn't sure if you had anything to put on your hand, so I bought ice..." Brittany sighs into the quiet hissing between them, presses her palm to the door, and pleads a slightly whiney, "Santana, are you ok?"

Santana expels a sigh, her eyes gently falling shut, before she opens them again. "You got ten seconds to get your beastly foot up out of my doorway, or I'm gonna make a phone call, and you're not gonna make it to your bed tonight. How 'bout that?" She punctuates that by way of thumping the door with the side of her coiled fist.

"Wait, who're you gonna call, Ghostbusters? Because I got told that I was paler than a ghost today, and I've kinda been worried that they were coming for me, even though I'm not a ghost. I think I need more sun."

"One..."

"Santana, stop counting and open the door so I can take a look at your hand."

"Two."

"Like, can you move your finger at all?"

"Three..."

Brittany leans her forehead into the door, strokes her hand down it. "It's ok you know – to like other women, I mean. They're soft, and silky, and when you kiss them you don't get a stubble rash. It's ok if you love women. I love them too. It's –"

The door suddenly opens fully and, in a flash, Santana's throwing her tight grasp around Brittany's wrist, yanking her inside. She quickly pokes her head outside, throwing panicked glances from left to right, before drawing back into the warmth of the apartment and back-bumping the door shut. "Jesus fucking Christ! Keep that _hole_," – She slings a hostile hand at Brittany's mouth – "in your face down! If anybody heard you, I'ma have your lips sewn shut."

"What are you so afraid of, Santana? You could be _so _awesome if you just embraced all the awesomeness that you are."

"You really think I'm fallin' for that? You just wanna get your perverted little hands in my pants. It's freakin' disgusting!"

"But, you're the one who kissed me earlier, Santana." Brittany gently reminds the smaller woman, her tone non-judgmental, as though she's missing something here.

Santana's lips slowly part as she holds the blonde's gaze, her mouth opening and closing with no words to show for it...

"Come here, let me see your hand," Brittany mumbles, taking steps towards the other woman.

It's almost comical, the way that Santana slips away from the front door and darts across the room, stumbling a little as her foot crunches into an empty beer can on her hasty backwards step. The momentum sees her fall back over the arm rest of the couch, cushions dipping as they absorb her sudden weight.

Brittany sighs, her foot momentarily lifting up backwards as she bends to grab the now slippery pack of ice from the floor. She then turns around, makes towards the couch, and sits a cushion away from the tense Latina who won't grant her eye contact. She doesn't mind though, because she knows that Santana can see her reaching the ice pack out towards her swollen hand, and she's just pleased that the Latina isn't stopping her.

"You know," Brittany whispers. "Your finger doesn't look that bad. Someone's a drama queen," she quietly sing-songs, pressing the bag of frozen cubes to the reddest part of Santana's finger, and gently massaging it around.

The Latina's forehead shrivels in deep frown at the gentle consideration with which Brittany is handling the bag of ice against her knuckles. "What the fuck is the matter with you?" she suddenly asks. "Not even three hours ago I was gettin' ready to put a hole in your stomach, and if you hadn't nearly broken my finger, no doubt about it, you'd still be lying in that alleyway now, surrounded by a puddle of your own guts." Brows still deeply knitted, she shakes her head to herself, baffled.

"Well, you were never really gonna shoot me," Brittany says with a shrug, as if it's an obvious fact, "because firstly: guns are my friends. Secondly, I attended this amazing gun disarming class at Master Kinjo Dojo's gym just seven months ago. And thirdly, if you really wanted to setup a reunion between Lord Tubbington and I, you would've just pulled the trigger. But you didn't," she nods, once, fingering a fallen blonde strand behind her ear.

"But..." Santana blinks a countless number of times, a frown still bossing her expression. "I _was _going to."

"Sure you were."

Santana balls her good hand to a fist. "I was! So why the fuck do you give a shit about whether you broke my finger or not?"

Brittany doesn't say anything to that, just adjusts the bag of ice on Santana's knuckles. The smaller woman hisses, and the blonde whispers, "Sorry."

The moment feels much too intimate, so – never mind the pain – Santana rips her partially numb hand away, wincing for only a second or two, before settling her solemn stare through the coffee table. "You need to go. Now."

Brittany can't help but pout slightly. But she stands up anyway. "I'm not giving up," she mutters, placing the pack of melting ice to the table. "Because, I know your secret identity."

Santana rolls her eyes and bobs her head to the right. "Door's that way. Use it, and don't ever let me see you anywhere near this place again. I don't wanna know you exist, got it?"

"...But, I don't get it; you already know that I exist."

Santana blows out a lengthy breath, her eyelids slow and heavy with every one of her blinks.

She's exhausted.

Brittany's the most exhausting person she's ever met, for so many different reasons.

"Leave," Santana finally says. It lacks conviction and kick, but it's all she can manage right now.

"…Ok," Brittany sighs. "Bye Santana."

When the front door finally closes, Santana shrinks into her shoulders and draws her knees up to her chest...

* * *

><p><strong>Thoughts? And thanks for reading.<strong>


	6. Chapter 6

**Hello everyone. Sorry about the delay. My work schedule has changed unfortunately. Thank you to every single person reading, alerting and reviewing. It's great to hear that you guys are digging this : D**

**To k1mjke, Yes Brittany is a little bossy at times lol. She knows what she wants and she goes for it, probably because she doesn't really grasp inhibitions like the most of us do. Well…she does, but she just…doesn't care hahaha :P**

**This chapter is a little bit of a filler. It's just a set up chap for the next one. But I hope you guys still get something out of it. Enjoy.**

Chapter Six

His fingers have been pattering on the laptop's keys for the past half hour, words that aren't even real words; sentences made up of nonsense accumulating in a Word document.

Brittany suddenly sighs, leans up and cranes her neck in a glance at him over the back of the couch. "Artie?"

He quickly frowns feigned concentration down at the small screen, fingers hastenening over random letters. "Hm?"

"How much longer are you gonna be on that?"

Artie rolls his eyes, blows out an intentionally bored breath. "I already told you, Britt; I have something important to type up. _Surely _your cyber stalking of Santana can wait."

In semi pout, Brittany takes a quick look at the Powerpuff girls watch on her wrist and twists her mouth at its face, before looking back over at her roommate. "It's just that I don't know what time Santa's leaving the mall, and I wanna put Santana's Facebook picture on my phone, so that I can show him what I want for Christmas this year." She then throws up her index and middle finger, her pale hand almost resembling the Playboy bunny from the side. "I'll be two seconds, promise."

Again, Artie sighs, cheeks slowly losing their balloons as air escapes his lips. His fingers limpen on the laptop's keys, before he snaps the lid shut with moderate force, and just sits there, staring into the white wall opposite.

Brittany frowns, watching him through a pained squint. "Artie, what's wrong?" she groans. "You've been grouchy with me for two days now. I feel like I'm walking on sea shells."

His eyes drift down to his lap, lingering over the dull, grey fabric of his trousers. "Maybe I'm bored of hearing about Santana," he mumbles. "I hadn't even rubbed the sleep from the corners of my eyes this morning before you were bouncing on my bed, telling me about how you'd poured pink icing over her head in your dream last night. She's all you ever talk about, and it's becoming wearisome."

"But –"

"No! I'm not finished," he scolds, gaze somewhat steely, like a teacher's final warning to a disobedient child.

Something about his tone takes the blonde laying on the couch back to those difficult days when teachers would stand over her as she struggled to write out simple words, their tones scolding when she'd mess up, like she was beneath them for not getting it. Like she was stupid.

Her head bows of its own accord, and she begins to fiddle with the stray threads of fabric fraying out of the couch, because she can't look at Artie when he's making her feel like this.

"I don't want to upset you, Britt. I just don't want to hear about her anymore."

Brittany slowly looks up, mumbles, "Why does it bother you so much? I talk about unicorns, like, all the time, and you never get mad."

"Because, in life, there are bad guys and there are good guys, Brittany. Santana's a _really_ bad guy," he chuckles slightly, as if the Latina's so dark you have to laugh to lighten the fact, so that it's not so heavy on your chest. "I guess it's just a shame," he sighs, peering his glum reflection in the glass table in front of him, "that the good guy always winds up finishing last."

Brittany blinks repeatedly to herself, still no clearer as to why her friend's _so _upset. "...Ok. Well," she shrugs a dejected shoulder, "I guess I won't talk about her anymore if it's bothering you. But, that means that I probably won't talk at all."

Artie's eyes flicker up, and he nudges up his slipping glasses, as though clear sight is going to help him to read the slight edge he thinks he's just heard in Brittany's voice. "Are you threatening me with silent treatment?"

...

"Uhh...Brittany?"

...

"Brittany?" he presses, watching the pouting blonde somewhat petulantly slump back down into the sofa. "Fantastic," he says, lifting the laptop's lid again.

Everything's quiet for a moment – save some stupid jingle humming from the television, before: "Artie?"

"Yes, Brittany?"

"...I'll be _two _seconds getting the picture, I swear."

Artie nods, once, to himself, as if to acknowledge the surge of growing irritation – amongst other things – clouding inside of him. "About the amount of time it took you to bring her up again," he points out, eyes dead.

"I'm not talking about _her_," she protests. "I'm talking about the Facebook picture. One's a real person, and the other is made up of piglets – wait!" she pauses, her sapphire blue's briefly drifting up in thought. "The other is made up of pixels...I think? Ok, so one moves, and the other doesn't – although the picture would if our lives were written by J.K Rowling, which would be _so _awesome. I'd send Santana a dancing howler."

Artie closes the laptop, stands the points of both his elbows on it and cups his face, shaking his head.

* * *

><p>They're messing around in some kitchen she's never seen or been in before, but somehow it's familiar, and there's a thick Christmas-like fog of cooking flour hanging in the air. They're laughing that deep, tortuous, kind of laughter too, pans and dishes thundering to the floor with their reckless food-throwing antics.<p>

The bag of sugar pops under a particularly eager grasp, a million white grains spraying out across the work surface to the tune of their manic giggles.

Crumbs of crushed cupcakes soar back and forth through the air.

Cookie dough that has gotten stuck to the floor sends them slipping and sliding.

It's chaos.

And now out of things to throw, Santana ducks, a strawberry jam tart meeting the wall just behind her with a playful splat, before slowly sliding down to the skirting board. She quickly looks back up, and when she sees that the blonde grinning mischievously at her from across the table, has her pale hands cupped around the large bowl of sludgy pink icing that has yet to set, she throws up a warning finger. "Whoa! Don't you dare, Brittany. You throw that, and I'll throw a tantrum so big, God himself is gonna have to put me in the naughty corner. _And_…" she squints her deep charcoal's a light-hearted evil, "no sex for three months."

Brittany looks down into the hypnotizing bowl of swirling pink, seemingly in deep thought. She then shrugs a shoulder. "The sex isn't that good anyway."

Santana gasps. "Take that back, miss 'Hold on, San," – she pants and groans theatrically – "give me a couple minutes to get over that orgasm.'"

"Ok, so the sex is out of this world. But..." Her dejected blue orbs find the bowl in her hands. "I _really _wanna throw this all over you," she whines, stomping a foot comically.

"Britt, just put the bowl down, and step away from it."

Like the flick of a villain's cloak, a grin shadows Brittany's features, and she slowly shakes her head. "You're gonna look so cute once I dunk this over your head. I've always wondered what you'd look like with pink hair," the still slightly panting blonde teases. She sends her tongue's tip out to take care of the blob of peanut butter smudged at the corner of her rose-pink lips. "Mmm. Tastes almost as good as you do, honey bun."

Santana slowly begins to back away as Brittany slowly begins to approach, ivory fingertips drumming out against the bowl in playful menace.

"Come here, my little caramel cupcake."

"Not in a million years."

It's not long before Santana's back meets a wall she hadn't anticipated, and Brittany's lifting the bowl high up over the Latina's head, threatening to tilt it. "I love you," she whispers, giggling.

"I swear to God! Don't!" Santana winces through several small chuckles, eyelids flickering in anticipation as she folds her arms over her crown and cowers.

"Tell me you're gay for me, and only me," the tall blonde suddenly whispers, something dark and possessive about her tone.

"I'm gay for you, and only you," Santana squeaks, reluctant laughter fizzing from her nostrils. "Now back up, you jolly blonde giant. How do you even breathe up there anyway?"

"Oh," Brittany grins, nodding, "Ok then smart ass." She tilts the bowl completely.

Santana gasps and freezes as she feels the cold, pink, goo slime over her hands and down her face, the icing blotching on several of her eyelashes...

"Someone looks like a big old bottle of Pepto-Bismol. A big old bottle of Pepto-Bismol that's gotten in a food fight. How do _you _breathe, huh, when you're a bottle of Pepto-Bismol?"

Santana violently flicks her hand free of a few icing drops, and glares up at the smirking blonde. "...I, I can't _believe _you just did that."

"Well _believe _that I'm going to lick every last drop off of you," Brittany purrs, leaning close to drag her tongue around the arc of Santana's dripping jaw until her lips are giggling at the tan woman's ear. "You might wanna save that tantrum 'til later," she smacks her lips, "because God's not available to put you in the naughty corner at the moment. He's out at a golf game with his mistress."

Brittany pulls back, giggles again, and the sound of it loops over and over until it echoes into nothing...

Suddenly, Santana springs up, the mattress beneath her bouncing slightly. She yawns that hippo kind of yawn, twists her hand's heel in one of her eyes, and squints out the light bleeding in through the blinds, as she tries to make clarity of the quickly fuzzing reality that she's just woken up from.

But everything's fast slipping away.

Everything except Brittany.

"Great," Santana deadpans. "So now I'm not even safe from this bitch in my own dreams."

Out of nowhere, the cabinet beside the bed begins to hum.

Puffing loose a sigh, Santana throws her thinly bandaged hand out at the cabinet to collect her phone, thumbing its pick-up button before the sleek device is even poised at her ear. Her voice is thick with sleep's cobwebs when she rubs her other eye and answers, "'Sup?"

"How would you like to do your uncle Alsarvio a favor, and earn yourself a little cash in the process?"

Santana slowly smirks into the phone, her face waking. "Is that you, Restless?"

"The one and only," he responds.

Her smirk grows into a smile, because she still remembers how he acquired that nickname. They called him Restless, _'cause he's always gotta be doin' somethin'._ Now, whether that something is baking a cake or kicking your fucking head in, he's not fussed.

Santana likes that about him, always has.

"So, you in, princess?" he asks the stretching silence.

"Wait, first of all, why isn't my uncle callin' me himself? And second of all, why're you only hollerin' me when my uncle wants a favor?" She raises a brow in challenge, though she's the only one in the room.

Restless chuckles the rough chuckle he's both known and feared for. "We both keep busy."

She raises a skeptical brow, hums, "Mmhmm. So what's this favor he wants from me?"

"Well," he begins, tone pure business, "there's this broad – Alicia Chignham. She was in on one of our shipment raids, but when the feds caught up to her, she sang like a bird. And now Ronnie's been locked up."

"Yeah," Santana slowly dips her head in a comprehension – brows knitting at the last second. "Wait, so what part am I supposed to play in all this?"

"We found out that she hits your gym on Wednesdays and Fridays. Your Unc wants you to teach her a lesson. You know, wish her Merry Christmas with those talented fists of yours."

Santana raises her bandaged hand up before her eyes, blinking at it. She's had to do everything with her left hand over the past week – even those simple things, such as working a toothbrush around her teeth and buttoning up her shirts. And then there are those orgasms, which just aren't as electrifying when you're working with a hand that's a novice to all those spots that make your toes curl.

_Fuck you Brittany!_

She sighs into the phone, shaking her head. "...I don't know man. I kind of hurt my hand, shut it in my front door on accident, like the dick that I am. It's still a little stiff, you know?" she says, slowly flexing its fingers in slight wince, before hopelessly dropping the hand to the sheets. "I mean, I would _love _to put my fist through that snitching bitch's throat, but," – she sighs once more – "I just can't see it. Tell Unc I'm sorry?"

"Alright. Well, we can get Quinn to do it, but we just thought we'd ask you first, since we knew you'd do the job with gusto." That gruff chuckle sounds again. "I still have nightmares about the night you beat the stuffin' outta that broad who spilled that drink on you at Big Tony's birthday bash. Man, she looked like Jason from _Friday the Thirteenth_ when you got through with her."

"Yeah." Santana puts on a chuckle, though it's airy and shallow. "Well I'm sorry I can't do the job. Let me know how it goes?"

"Sure, princess."

"And don't let the next time you bell me be because you want a favor, asshole."

"You know how it is, Satan. The wife gets pissy when I call beautiful women for anything other than business."

Santana lets her lips quirk in a beat of silence. "Yeah, well that's never stopped you before."

"Feisty."

"You love every minute of it."

"That's what you think."

"Oh come on," Santana scoffs. "You _know _you'd be all up on this if I let you. Let's not even play."

"Shh!" he hisses playfully. "That's our little secret."

"Psh, everybody knows, including your darling Anita, which is why she's always up in the hospital gettin' plastic surgery," she corrects him through a lengthy yawn, drawing small swirls in the rumpled duvet with her finger.

"Oh you mean like everybody knows that you secretly love pussy?"

Santana's fist balls around the sheets, creating columns of fine lines in the duvet. She grits her teeth, grunts _the _most hostile, "Fuck you Sean," into the device pressed to her ear.

"Hey, don't get personal with me, and I won't get personal with you, alright? That's my wife."

"I don't give a rat's ass. I'm _not _gay, got it fuck face? I'm not!"

"I didn't say you were gay. I said that you secretly love pussy."

"Oh, you wanna play semantics, _puto_? Say it again. I _dare _you, mother fucker! I dare your saggy tomato-lookin' ass to say that dumb shit to me again." She waits until she hears him part his lips to respond, jabs her thumb against the hang-up button, and hardballs the poor phone into the wall across the room, watching it explode into pieces that are too quick for her eyes to count.

"I'm not gay," she tells her lap.

* * *

><p>Even though Brittany doesn't need to use the step-up stool to hoist herself onto the large, white-bearded man's lap, she does anyway, wriggling for comfort as she slips her hand into her jacket and pulls out her phone.<p>

The line of kids queuing to the side giggle and point at the odd scene before them; a twenty-three-year-old blonde sat snug on the lap of a bewildered Santa, whose hands are raised out to the side, because he doesn't want to put them anywhere that could incur a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Stood next to her mother, one little girl reaches up, tugs on Kurt's hand. He sighs, reluctantly comes out from behind the leaflet some guy passed him earlier, and glances at this little girl's mother, who's smiling him her sympathy, before he peers down into young impish doe brown orbs.

"Your friend's funny," the little girl grins up.

"Friend?" He whips his neck from left to right. "What friend?"

"The _lady_ on Santa's lap," she gestures, as though it's obvious.

"Oh, you think I know her?" He gives an over the top chuckle, waves it off. "No, I don't," he shakes his head, "I don't...know her."

"We all saw you walk in with her. We know she's with you," the little girl's mother suddenly pipes up, something stern about her gaze. "_Don't _lie to my kid."

Kurt's features alternate between a disturbed frown and a nervous grin, because suddenly it's not so hard to picture this woman with a knife in hand and a crazed fire in her eye. "Ohh-kay then," he drawls through a plastic grin, slowly stepping away from this woman and her demon child.

When he feels he's a safe distance away, he brisk walks it to Brittany's side, tugging on her jacket. "Hurry up and place your order," he whispers.

"Hold on a second, Kurt," she absently murmurs, thumb still scrolling through the images on her phone. She scrolls past a photo of her niece pulling a face, smiles to herself...

"Don't lie to her kid," Kurt suddenly huffs to himself, crossing his arms. "Taking your child to see some bear in a Santa Clause suit _is _lying to your kid."

"Ho, ho, ho!" Santa gruffs, giving Kurt death with his beady eyes. "I'm three-hundred-and-five pounds, son. But I can always be a bear if necessary."

"Sorry," Kurt quickly squeaks, almost slapping himself in the forehead with his leaflet as he holds it up before his face once more.

"I found it!" Brittany suddenly announces, thrusting her phone's screen into Santa's face with a joyous smile. "Isn't she beautiful? Her name's Santana, and she's the only gift I want this year."

He peers at the photo of some smirking Latina holding up gun-fingers at whoever is snapping the picture, and then rests his sight on Brittany. "You do realize that I'm just some guy dressed up as Santa Clause, right lady?" He pulls on his long white beard and lets it snap back to his dark chin to illustrate his point.

Brittany scoffs, and waves it off. "How do you know you aren't the real Santa Clause?"

"Girl, are you playin'?" he asks, half frowning, half chuckling.

Brittany smirks. "Maybe."

"Look man, I aint Santa. Firstly, I'm a black dude. Secondly, I'm only doin' this Santa gig so I can pay my momma back all the cash I done stole from her over the years. If there is a Santa out there, he sure as hell aint me."

"Oh. My. God!" Kurt sighs into the leaflet, shaking his head. He blindly pats the air until his fingers brush Brittany's shoulder, and slides the leaflet down his face, peering at his friend over it. "I think we should go now, Britt. We still have to get outfits for tonight."

"Ok," she says, hopping down off of Santa's lap. She pats his knee once both her feet are safe on the floor, shoots him a playful squint. "Take care of yourself then, Santa, and remember: I was good this year." She winks.

Santa shakes his head, chuckling. "I'll see what I can do."

She smiles one of her gloriously rich smiles, says, "Thank you."

.

.

.

Kurt links his arm with Brittany's as they walk out of the clothes store, numerous bags swinging gently from both their fingers.

"So you think she'll be there tonight?" he asks, gazing back over his shoulder at a particularly yummy guy they've just passed.

Brittany gasps and gently bumps him with her hip. "Don't do that to Blaine."

Kurt reluctantly turns back around, bumps his friend back just because. "We're both allowed to look. It's just the touching that we have a problem with."

Brittany just shrugs, and they continue to walk.

"_So_," Kurt drawls, bumping her again, "do you think Santana's gonna be working there tonight?"

"I don't know. I mean, it said she worked there on her Facebook. I guess we'll find out later on tonight." She suddenly smiles. "I bet she looks super cute working behind the bar."

"You're such a stalker," Kurt giggles, hip-bumping her one last time. "I love it."

* * *

><p><strong>Thoughts? And thanks for reading.<strong>


	7. Chapter 7

**To Khau, you're very welcome. Most of the time I'm at work, jotting down little ideas for this fic as they come to me. I'm stoked that you're vibing it, and thank you for commenting : )**

**To Blueskkies, lmao! Your review had me rolling like a bowling ball. Though, next time you can leave out the ellipses, and just type the whole swear word ; ) I love me some foul language. Gives life a little flavor :P Thanks for commenting.**

**To shine90, I LOVE YOU FOR LOVING THIS FIC! *hugs* The pacing's gotta be right, or the story would fall flat on its ass, and I'd lose interest in writing it. I stepped it up just a tiny bit in this chapter though ; ) Thanks for taking the time to comment : )**

**To Catbast, Hey. Thanks for showing this story such love! I went on ahead and checked out that song you recommended, and it made me giggle to think that a story I'm writing could influence what a person sees and how a person feels when they put on a piece of music. It was a badass song, and just you saying that somewhat tells me that I'm getting the American slang right ; )**

**Finally, I just want to express my thanks to everyone showing this fic love through reviews, favoriting and alerts. It's very flattering, if not a little daunting. But definitely more flattering.**

**I had so much fun writing this. I hope you guys enjoy this too ; )**

Chapter Seven

She walks in with her head bowed, bag on her shoulder as she weaves quick steps through the tables and chairs.

"You're late!"

Santana halts, lifting her head up in the direction of her manager's bark. She sighs, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, and you're fat and ugly," she shrugs. "What's it gonna be? I can keep this up all night, Barry."

The short, round, man flicks on the neon green light over the bar, everything within its reach suddenly floating in a serene glow. He drags the cloth in his grasp over the bar's counter, and straightens up the box of straws, sighing lengthily at the small Latina with a somewhat stern stare that's coming from under his eyelids. "You gotta stop being late," he says.

Santana stands there, folds her arms. "And you gotta stop bein' fat and ugly." She deadpans, shrugging a shoulder. "How 'bout that, huh?"

"If you're comin' in here like this tonight, you can _turn_," he swirls his finger in the air, "right back around again, and go home. The customers just wanna have a good time. They don't wanna have to deal with whatever bullshit you've got goin' on in your life at the moment, understand?"

"Jesus!" Santana throws her wrist out, and gives the silver hanging from it a begrudged glance. "I'm ten minutes late, Barry. Get off my dick."

Barry just rolls his eyes, and boredly gestures a thumb over his hill of a shoulder. "Go throw your hair up and put your stuff in the back. We open in fifteen minutes."

"Go throw _your _hair up, Barry – whoops, you don't have any," she jibes, blowing a taunting kiss as she walks past. "Bald, fat _and _ugly," she adds as an afterthought.

"Yeah, yeah, you little midget," he somewhat affectionately calls back, "and bring some more glasses out as well, or I'll fire your little ass."

"Suck my dick!" he hears her muffle from the narrow hallway which leads into the wine cellar.

Barry smirks, and flicks on the neon lilac light under the bar, telling himself: "Santana Lopez. Can't do with her, can't do without her."

* * *

><p>"Ok...GO!"<p>

In a Mexican wave of sorts, Brittany throws a shot of honey rum down her throat, followed by Kurt, and then Blaine, each empty glass hitting the table again a short succession of seconds later in that exact order.

It takes a moment for the alcohol's kick to register, and when it does that split second later, all three either rapidly drum the soles of their feet against the floor or flail their hands, grimacing as the intense brown liquid sears down their throats and warms their insides.

Blaine's the first to clutch his chest, an unrelenting cough thundering through his torso. "Wow, t-that's s-strong!" He whips his head to the side repeatedly, as if to shake off the discomfort of it all, and blinks away the sparkles of moisture growing in the corners of his eyes.

Through his own struggles, Kurt leans over, and rubs a slow hand up and down his boyfriend's back. "Are you ok?" he coughs.

"I will..." – Blaine suddenly jerks forward into a cough which rattles his tonsils and sees his entire face fluster a blood crimson, before trying that sentence again – "I will..." he swallows, "be."

"Deep breaths honey," Kurt advises through a deeply etched frown, his chest visibly heaving up and down through his thin red shirt. He then slowly turns his head to see whether Brittany's still alive or not.

"Bottoms up," she sing-songs, shaking another two full shot glasses at them, the dark liquid sloshing dangerously close to the rim of each glass.

Kurt just gulps.

Blaine just blinks...

In quiet giggle, Brittany eventually lowers the two glasses to the table, and waves her two horrified friends off. "I'm just screwing with you guys." She finally lets a few splutters of her own loose then, and clutches her lower stomach, straightening her back against the chair as she rubs soothing circles into her abs, whilst wearing a slight wince. "Now, _that _stuff'll get rid of your cold if praying to a unicorn won't."

Nobody hears Artie wheel himself into the lounge just then, what with Slum Village's '_Fall in Love_' softly floating out of the stereo's speakers. Everybody just hears: "For the love of God, will you guys keep it down? I have a disastrous headache, and your pre-club _session _isn't helping!"

Brittany quickly stands, reaches over and twists the stereo's volume knob. The chilled song soars even louder for a moment, before she fumbles to twist the knob the other way, smoothing the hand with the offensive judgment down her thigh. "Sorry Artie. We'll keep it down."

"Yeah, sorry Artie," Blaine offers, casting his eyes down at the couch, if not for anything else but to avoid the awkwardness.

"Yeah…" Kurt says, purely because everybody else has, though the moment Artie spins around and wheels himself back down the small hallway, grumpily batting one of the Christmas decorations out of his way, Kurt can't help the laughter that bubbles in his throat.

Brittany drops back down into the arm chair, folding her leg underneath herself as she bends forward to grab her Budweiser from earlier. She gazes into the bottle's black hole, blinking into it. "Don't laugh, Kurt," she mumbles, "I'm worried about him."

"Oh?" Blaine frowns, unconsciously leaning a little over towards her as if to lend an ear.

"Yeah, he's been upset for a few days now. This morning he told me to stop talking about Santana."

Blaine and Kurt throw each other a knowing look.

"I mean, he's eventually gonna have to get used to her if she's gonna be coming round to spend movie nights here with me. I mean, I could try to keep her in my room, but what if she wants a drink in the middle of the night, and he's still up watching _Glee _or something?" She glances her concerned sapphire orbs between her two friends, as though this is the most crippling problem in the world to her.

"…You know, Brittany," Kurt cautiously begins – spluttering to a stop when his boyfriend nudges him. "Ow!"

"Right then!" Blaine stands, nods towards the front door. "I think we should head down to the club now guys. What do you say?"

Brittany's forehead twists beneath her golden bangs. "Wait, what were you about to say, Kurt?"

"Who, me?" he points to his chest, glancing around as if Brittany's got the wrong person. "Nothing." He shakes his head and puts up a smile. "I wasn't about to say anything."

"Come on guys!" Blaine gestures for them to stand up, making a shooing motion towards the front door. "Let's go get even drunker than we already are."

Brittany holds a halting finger up at him, and lifts her bottle to her lips, the cartilage inside of her pale throat visibly oscillating with each gulp...

"Well that's a monster of a burp waiting to happen," Kurt notes.

* * *

><p>He snatches her bicep and tries to pull her away from the bar, but she resists, ripping her arm back and mouthing hostile profanities at him in what would appear to be a silent movie to all those busting out to the music thumping through the small establishment.<p>

It's the third time tonight that Santana's seen him giving this girl hassle. "Alright, I've seen enough of this fool." She slides another customer their drink, and grabs the bat leaning up behind the bar, shuffling past her two colleagues towards the troublesome couple.

"Hey!" She brings the bat's head down, hard, on the counter, then points it square between this guy's brows, her glare pure steel as she nods her head towards the exit. "Take your ass home, or they're gonna have to take you to the hospital. Your choice."

He immediately refrains from grabbing on the woman, and goes cross-eyed peering up at the cold object pressed to his forehead. A second later he refocuses his inebriated gaze on Santana, who tilts her head to the side and lifts him a challenging brow.

On wobbly feet, he steps back, throwing his arms out to the sides in a plea of innocence. "What did I do?" he shouts, voice attempting to contest the loud song. "I wasn't doing anything!"

"Alright." Santana flexes her neck from side to side, and rolls her shoulders, securing both of her hands around the bat, and just when she winds it back over her shoulder, ready to swing like she's never swung before, she feels a firm tug from behind.

"Give me that," Barry says, taking the weapon. He clicks his thumb and middle finger together in the air, motioning Joe and Andy over towards the guy who's causing a problem.

Santana shoves her manager in the chest, not hard, but just enough for him to know that there's a fire blazing somewhere within her small frame. "Why'd you do that? I was just about to take his head clean off of his shoulders."

"Precisely," Barry says, setting the bat down by the till. "Next time get Joe and Andy over. That's what they're paid for, Santana. Go on, go cool off in the back."

She rolls her eyes and stomps off, bumping one of the other barmaids, hard, on the way without ever turning back to apologize.

"Did you just see that?" Carla asks, throwing incredulous glances after the Latina as she steadies the drinks in her hand. She slowly shakes her head at Barry. "You gotta do somethin' about her."

"She's like family," he shrugs, his thick, unkept, brows knitting apologetically, "I can't fire her."

Carla just rolls her eyes, and makes towards the blur of faces crowding at the other side of the bar...

.

.

Twenty minutes limp on by before Santana decides to re-emerge. Straight away she notices the tightly packed crowd gyrating on the dance floor, some fist-pumping, some cheering, and others with their fingers in their mouths, attempting a whistle, as the rainbow of strobe lights flicker above.

Somebody suddenly nudges her out of her reverie. She looks to her side to see her fellow bartender, Daniel, grinning and pointing his finger at the crowd over on the dance floor. "Check out this chick's moves. She's _sik_!"

As if by design, the crowd suddenly seems to part, revealing a tall blonde; her skilled limbs popping and locking at the fading song's every turn.

Santana's face instantly drops, and then she slowly glares up at the ceiling. "Seriously, what the fuck did I do to deserve this? _Answer_ me, ass-wipe!"

She doesn't hear God whisper back, "What you've done is deny who you are."

Nobody does.

Through a squinted glare, Santana maneuvers her eyes up and down Brittany's tall and slender frame, watching her wind her hips slow and provocatively under the twitching lights, like nothing else matters, like nobody's watching...

"See somethin' you like?" Daniel playfully nudges her with a wink. "I sure as hell do!"

She transfers her demonic glare to him, folds her arms. "You know what?" she sighs, "go get fucked, Daniel. Seriously."

He slings the bar cloth over his shoulder and throws his hands up. "Hey, I'm just kidding, San."

"Firstly, don't call me San like we're tight. Secondly, don't _kid _around with me, like we're tight. You'll end up losing a ball, and nobody's gonna be _laughin'_ when you can't have kids in ten years time, 'cept me. We clear?"

He merely gulps, and squeaks, "Crystal."

"Good."

She senses a customer's presence then, and turns around to take the order, momentarily freezing when her eyes meet a certain sapphire blue.

Brittany merrily drums her fingertips on the bar's counter, still breathing somewhat heavily. She ruffles the darkened bangs sticking to her pale forehead and drags the back of her hand across the damp skin beneath the golden strands. "Hey Santana," she chirps, giving a small wave and a flustered-faced grin.

She's never seen Santana like this before; deep red lipstick adorning her full lips, hair pulled back off of her beautiful face in a neat bun, with but a few stray strands lingering from her v-shaped hairline. Brittany watches how the extravagant silver earrings hooped through the Latina's ears jingle a little as she breathes, and there's nothing left of the blonde's vocabulary in that moment, except an awe-glazed: "_Wow_, you look so, _so _beautiful."

"Alright, that's it!" Santana nudges Daniel out of the way, and looks from one end of the bar to the other, brow furrowed. "Where the fuck did I put that God damn bat?"

Brittany rises up off of the bar stool, glancing around for this bat that Santana seems to covet so much. She gives up after a while and resumes her seat in slight pout. "I'm sorry; I can't see it anywhere – wait, what are you gonna do with a bat? Are you gonna swing my way, Santana?" she smirks, goofily.

The Latina ceases her search, nods her head back slightly, and frowns all the way down to her soul, because working out whether Brittany's throwing sexual innuendo, or whether she's just tipsy and talking her usual nonsense is damn near impossible. She eventually shakes her head, giving up on that exhausting puzzle, before she rests both hands flat to the bar-top, and leans towards the blonde like she means business. "I'm sick and tired of you. I'm sick of seeing your face, sick of hearing your voice, and I'm tired of hearing the stupid shit that comes outta your mouth."

"I'm _not _stup–"

"Be quiet!" Santana holds up a stern silencing finger. "Now I don't know how you found out that I work here, but we're _gonna_," she nods, like it's final, "come to some sort of agreement to where you keep the fuck away from me, and I keep the fuck away from you, otherwise we're going to war. War means I'm coming for you; it means I'm comin' for your family, your friends – hell, even your damn pets. You _really _don't wanna go to war with me. Am I making myself clear, Brittany?"

Shrugging a sluggish shoulder, Brittany begins to twirl the umbrella belonging to one of the abandoned cocktail glasses resting on the counter. "But, I'm not afraid of you, Santana," she mumbles, voice soft but still decipherable.

"Yeah?" Santana throws her head back in sinister chuckle, exposing her smooth caramel neck for a second, before deliberately deadpanning. "You should be."

"I've tried," Brittany continues, lips protruding in the beginning of a pout, "and you're just..." she shrugs, almost helplessly, "too cute." Her eyes flicker up from the cocktail glass, and they hold Santana's in a boundless moment that seems to exist just outside of space and time...

Just then, Kurt slings a floppy arm around Brittany's shoulder. "Whew!" He grins, wiping the sheen of moisture from his forehead. "Those toilets were surprisingly clean, and they smell _fierce darling_ – not that they will when Blaine gets done in there," he giggles, squeezing the blonde affectionately.

Santana gives this man, or boy rather – she hasn't quite worked it out yet – the once over, and leans back into her own space, slipping her lopsided mask back into place. "More _fags_!" she spits. "Just what this place needs."

Kurt looks up, pressing a horrified hand to his chest as he watches the small tan woman skulk off to the other end of the bar to serve a hailing customer. "Oh my _God_, what a complete bitch!"

"Hey," Brittany frowns, slurring, "please don't call her that."

He lets his arm fall away from her shoulders. "So she's allowed to call me a _fag_ and get off Scott-free, but when I call her a bitch, you're frowning?" He folds his arms, awaiting an answer.

"She's just afraid, Kurt. She doesn't," she shakes her head, "she doesn't mean it."

Kurt glances down to the far end of the bar, and clocks Santana giving him _the_ most hostile glare. "Oh, I'm pretty sure that demon means it, Britt. I think you need to stay away from this one."

"But…" She continues to stir the small umbrella, blinking down into the empty glass, "I really like her."

"What!" – he slings an obvious hand at the Latina – "is to like about that? You're thinking with your lady parts, and it's going to get you into all kinds of trouble."

Brittany says nothing, just continues to stir the umbrella…

"Hey," Kurt slowly rubs his palm down her back. "I just don't wanna see you get hurt, Britt."

"She's not gonna hurt me. She really likes me too."

Kurt scoffs, not that Brittany hears it with the new song that's starting up. "How can you tell?" he asks. "You could have anybody you want, honey. She's an emotional danger zone."

He knows Brittany well, knows that when they were in high school and Algebra was frying her brain cells, she didn't give up – wouldn't! She's the strongest woman he knows. Gentle but strong. The combination makes for unshakable will. Kurt knows this, and so he eventually throws his hands up in surrender. "Alright, well I know you won't give up. So, just be cautious, Ok?"

"Don't you mean careful?"

"They both mean the same thing, Britt."

"Oh."

"Now, let's get ourselves another drink." He drums both of his hand's knuckles to the bar-top. "Something _strong_."

.

.

.

Come the end of her shift, Santana waves Andy and Joe goodbye, and pulls her coat around her body, stepping out into the cold night. She immediately sees Brittany sat on the curb, watching traffic whizz back and forth, and tries to sneak off, but the pesky clickity-clack of her heels alerts the blonde.

"I really didn't like the way you spoke to my friend tonight," Brittany says, hot on the Latina's trail.

Santana quickens her step and rolls her eyes, hiking her purse higher up on her shoulder. "Like I give a shit."

"That's what you want me to think – that you don't care! You don't fool me, Santana. Everybody thinks I'm stupid, but I'm not!"

Santana halts her step as Brittany's slightly heated bark registers. She spins around, a spiteful smirk etched into the corner of her mouth as she presses her palm to the blonde's shoulder and shoves her back. "Well someone's brave now that they've gotten a few more drinks into their system. Go on, Britt-Britt," she whispers, slowly walking up on the slightly wobbly woman. "Raise your voice at me again. I dare you."

Brittany just rolls her eyes. "Grow some lady balls, and kiss me again. _I_ dare _you_," she counters, and just like that Santana feels the upper-hand slipping from her grasp, because of all things she wasn't expecting _that_.

She blinks a few times, gathering herself. "If I kiss you, I'm gonna pull away with your bottom lip between my teeth, and you're gonna be headed for the hospital. How 'bout that?"

With a sigh, and a disappointed shake of the head, Brittany just steps past the shorter woman. "Bye Santana."

Santana spends the next few moments blinking to herself in deep frown. "No!" she suddenly spits, spinning around and throwing an aggressive hand around Brittany's porcelain wrist. She yanks her back so that they're nose to nose. "Who the _fuck_ do you think you are?" Her body trembles; she's heated for reasons even she doesn't understand now.

"I'm Brittany S Pierce," the blonde responds, face blank. "Who are you, besides this unbelievably awesome woman, who keeps banging her head up against society's judgments?"

They stare at one another in a tense, precarious, moment…

It's sudden, so sudden, how Santana then clutches the back of Brittany's head and catches the taller woman's lips sideways, slowly twisting her tan neck into the kiss, before gently pulling away, their lips separating with a small popping noise. Her forehead crumples as she flickers her dark coffee hues from the blonde's crystal-blue eyes to her flushed rose-pink lips. She then leans in for the second time, but Brittany presses a preventative hand to her chest, gently pushing her away.

"No. I'm _so_ mad at you right now. You have no idea what Kurt's had to deal with, just for being himself, yet you called him that awful name," she scolds, voice thin and worn as if that fact pains her down to her very soul. "So," Brittany sighs and looks to the pavement, quietly murmuring, "take care of yourself, Santana."

When Brittany walks away this time, Santana lets her…

* * *

><p><strong>If you're into Neo-Soul, old school, type hip hop, you should probably check out the song which was playing in the scene with Britt, Kurt, Blaine, and Artie. It's called 'Fall in Love' by Slum Village. Beautiful masterpiece of a tune it is. RIP J-Dilla.<strong>

**As always, thoughts? And thanks for reading.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Hello again everyone!**

**To Shine90, I give you hugs in the last chapter's author notes, and you're all like 'Fuck you for the cliffhanger' in your review? Lmao! That's it, we're getting a divorce, and I'm taking the kids and the sports cars :P Thanks for commenting.**

**To Lanter, Once again, I loved your comment. It's true to the bone, it is : )**

**To R Cole, are you shtting me? What an amazing comment. I already see it as a movie in my head – well I'm sure every writer does, but, you know. Thank you : ) Maybe I should pester the hell out of Naya on twitter so that she reads it and pitches it to some of her industry mates lol. That would be so damn cool, not the pestering part, but the realization of this being a movie part.**

**To Stalpankaka, I thought I better get this update up, before you died on me. Everybody's got to die some time, but you aint dying on my watch :D**

**To mindconfession, glad to have you on board. I hope you enjoy this chapter too, and the next, and the one after that, and so on. **

**To Urbankazoos, thank you very much ; )**

**To Blueskkies, I haven't watched the duets episode yet – or anything else past season one, ep twenty, but to hear Britt tell Santana that, I think I may just have to download the rest of the eps. Thank you for your comment.**

**As always, thanks for all of the love. I hope you enjoy this chapter.**

Chapter Eight

It's been a week and three days since that night, a week and three days since that bitch, Brittany, pushed her away and stepped past her like she was nothing, and the vessels at Santana's temples do nothing but bulge every time she thinks about it.

She's still angry - amongst a vast array of other emotions - and boy does this red punch bag that she's bullying around with relentless blows from her fists know it.

The large hanging bag jumps, swaying shudderingly from left to right as she bounces on the balls of her feet, back muscles flexed and strained as she throws devastating combinations, before she pivots back a little and blasts the bag with a thunderous _thwack _from her shin. "That's right. Take that!" she growls, forehead and sternum flowering with humid moisture.

A few of the other gym users throw somewhat disturbed glances over at her, but she fails to notice, hugging the bag to her sticky chest and panting heavily into it.

She almost expects it to push her away after the way she's been treating it...sort of like Brittany did.

"Argh!" she roars, shoving the punch bag away, before slipping one arm around it and fast bludgeoning repeated elbows to it with her other.

Just then, her loose blue shorts begin to vibrate. She shoves the swinging bag away again, steps back, and rips the Velcro straps from both of her fingerless padded gloves loose, pelting them into the wall opposite. Her hand slips into her humming pocket, re-emerging with the shoddy back-up phone she's been using for the past two weeks.

She jabs the pick-up button and thrusts the device to her ear, barks, "What?"

"What's goin' on between you and Restless?" The smooth, deep, voice simply requests.

Santana snarls, remembering her last conversation with her Uncle's right-hand man. "That cumstain of a mother fucker called me gay, Unc! I should've rolled up into his house, and slashed his _bitch_," – she jabs her finger through the air aggressively – "in the forehead. Her face would've looked like two vaginas bumpin' when I finished with her trout-mouth ass. Bitch looks like a damn ventriloquist dummy."

The response comes simple: "Well aren't you?"

She's not in the mood for anything indirect, so she sighs, exasperated. "Aren't I what?"

"Gay."

That's direct, punishingly so.

Her eyebrows throw themselves into tight knit, pleats of wrinkles washing her entire forehead. "I'VE HAD _BOYFRIENDS_! I mean," she gestures around with her free hand as if she doesn't know what else to do about this anymore, "what in the fuck is wrong with everybody?"

There's a beat of silence from the other end of the line, then: "Look, jovensita, your parents are no longer with us, God rest their souls. They were never on board with anything out of the ordinary. I mean, your mother gave your older brother up because he was born with no limbs; said he was possessed by the devil," he tells it. "But now they're gone!" He pauses, as if to let that sink in. "You're free to do whatever it is that you want, and you're free to be whoever it is that you wanna be. You're a Lopez, which means that you walk to the beat of your own damn drum - fuck the feds, and put a bullet in anybody who's got somethin' to say."

Santana suddenly feels an intense prickling behind her eyes. She quickly tries to sniff away the tsunami she can feel building behind them, remaining mute, in the hopes that when she next parts her lips her voice won't betray her...

"Santana?"

She quickly rubs her nose with the knife of her hand, and sniffs again, quiet with her, "...Hm?"

"You ever need anythin', you give me a call. We take care of each other. _Capiche_?" he jests, in mock of that thick, Italian, mob accent perpetuated in movies.

She nods her head a few times and croaks a quiet, "yeah," folding her bottom lip between her teeth as she hugs her lower abdomen, and turns away from the prying eyes of all those in the gym.

"Now you just need to come spend some time up here, make up with Sean. He doesn't want anybody to know, but he's heartbroken about your little disagreement."

"Sean can suck my dick," she says through a small watery chuckle.

.

.

Ten minutes into her walk home from the gym, Santana takes a look at the watch on her wrist. Just a casual glance - except now that she knows what time it is, coupled with what day it is, things are anything but casual. Her feet begin to slow, and she looks across the street, pondering whether to continue, or whether to cut up the side road to her left...

After what seems like a tortuous eternity of indecision, she quickly cuts up the side road.

It's not too long before she's stood at the side of the large broken-down building. She watches the small building across the street, waits for that familiar eruption of noisy children that she's come to expect each time she's ever been near the place.

But it never comes.

So she stuffs her hand into her jacket's pocket, pulls out the warm cheeseburger that she's just purchased from the hot food stand on the way, and tears the wrapper from it, tossing the flimsy square piece of paper somewhere behind her, before ripping somewhat of an aggressive bite out of the meat patty and two cobs. Her jaw sluggishly churns around the food in her mouth until she swallows, her dark unblinking eyes so persistently fixed on the dance studio across the street, that everything begins to cloud gray.

She quickly blinks, snapping her charcoal orbs out of their haze, and it is in this moment that Santana actually realizes where she is, and what she's doing right now...

The realization draws a huff of a sigh from her lips.

"This is _so_ fuckin' retarded," she husks to herself, rolling her eyes and slowly shaking her head up at the sky. She then looks down, sighs at the burger in her hand, and tosses it over her shoulder, hearing it thud to the concrete a few seconds post.

She boots a stone down into a nearby drain, about to take off when that familiar burst of noise erupts across the street. Quickly throwing herself back out of obvious sight, she watches the multitude of children beginning to spill out of the small dance studio's doors, sunny smiles adorning each one of their flustered-pink faces.

Once each child has either disappeared into one of the cars parked alongside the road, or walked off hand in hand with an adult, Brittany surfaces in her usual loose-fitting work attire, duffle bag slung up on her shoulder, her pale hands fiddling the studio's doors locked.

Santana blinks in the sight of the blonde, feels the muscle in her chest pick up at maddening speed, her palms suddenly all humid and clammy, as she watches the chirpy, oblivious, dancer turn away from the studio and begin her stride down the street in the opposite direction.

"Alright, now just _calm _the _fuck _down," Santana commands her body, coming out from the building's shadow with every distancing step that she sees the blonde take. But her body only grows more disobedient, heart hammering almost painfully now, with every effort that she makes to suppress how vulnerable she had felt when Brittany pushed her away, how vulnerable she now feels seeing the other woman again.

There's no anger, and even less frustration - well there is, because that's what she's taught herself to feel when she can't deal with other emotions; her two _infallible _crutches - but they're silent next to this particular strand of vulnerability. Silent next to the embarrassment, and almost non-existent altogether when sat next to the admonishing look that she'd received from the hurt blonde, that night.

As Brittany's form becomes a mere ant in the far distance, Santana turns and leans the back of her head against the wall, her chest expanding and deflating much too rapidly for one who's been stood stationary. "Serious now; get a God damn grip. This shit is ridiculous," she breathes out, letting her eyes fall shut for a moment as she stuffs her hands into her pockets, and goes about collecting all those scattered parts of herself with deep breaths.

She then puffs out one last breath cloud, opens her eyes, and pushes off of the wall into a steady gait.

* * *

><p>She's been up since the early bird's first song whistled in through her bedroom window.<p>

She's made her bed, she's been in the shower, she's brushed her teeth, she's gotten dressed into something respectable, and she's spent thirty minutes styling her gorgeous black tresses into the up-do that her mother used to love seeing on her so much.

"_Makes you look like a super model, mija. Make sure to mind all those boys you hang around with,_" she used to happily fuss, preening at a fourteen-year-old Santana's fringe, before chuckling off into the kitchen or some other part of the tiny house.

Santana's lips quirk up at the memory, and then she blows out a lingering breath, slowly lifting her somber coffee hues up at the full-length mirror hung up on the wall...

It's difficult to keep eyes with herself, surprisingly difficult, but she somehow manages. "Quit bein' such a damn pussy," she quietly grunts at her reflection, shoving the mirror. "Just go there, and say what the fuck you've gotta say. They're dead for fuck sake."

She's right. They are dead, and it's been that way four years now. Four years, and she still hasn't visited them...

Atop of the dresser, her back-up cellphone suddenly begins to shriek out one of those obnoxious monophonic ringtones. Santana jars her head in its direction, quickly crossing the room to collect it.

She peers its murky screen, thumbing the buttons required to give her access to this message it says she's received.

_Wanna bring your hungry ass round, my sista from another mister? Christmas dinner's just finished cooking! There's chocolate gateau and everything! Xxx_

Santana quickly presses out and sends the response: _Can't, M. I think I'm finally gonna head down to my parent's grave today. Xxx_

It's just thirty-five short seconds before her phone shrieks out again. She grimaces whilst snapping her tongue at the shrill noise, and quickly jabs a random button just to get it to shut up, later opening up the text.

_For real? :O Well, you want me to come with, or would you rather I stay my intrusive ass right where it is? Xxxx_

Santana smirks, types out the reply:

_Lol. Stay your intrusive ass right where it be. X_

.

.

.

There are three teenage boys sat on a cluster of gravestones, passing a blunt between one another, at the far end of the graveyard, the casual swing of their legs and their frequent fits of laughter almost mocking gestures for where they are.

It's clear that this is nothing to them, merely a place to stop and have a quick puff, whilst the feds aren't looking.

It's more than that to Santana, much more. She's visiting a place where she can walk the ground, knowing that her mother and father are close.

Somehow she finds herself wanting to be closer though, and squints down curiously at the shoes on her feet. "Fuck it. Walk to the beat of your own drum," she whispers, using one foot to kick the shoe from the other, before momentarily bending to remove the other one; the false inch that they'd lent her no more.

Her toes feel cold in the short and spiky blades of grass, despite the moderately warm sun directly ahead, its even rays glistening down and making the strangest shadows of marble winged angels and other oddly-shaped headstones.

But even with blades of grass poking up through her toes, still she's not close enough, so she drops her rustling bouquet of orange marigold flowers down to the cleanest patch of green she can see, and follows after them, taking up a cross-legged seat on the ground next to the two large gravestones.

"I'm uhh…I'm sorry I haven't been sooner, but… it just, it really sucks to be reminded –" her words tangle in her teary gasp just then, her head slowly shaking at the sheer injustice of life sometimes. "The way you guys went, it was _so _messed up, you know?" she chokes out, dragging her forearm across her quivering nostrils.

Just to give herself something to do besides fall apart, she takes a few fingers to her mother's headstone, busying them with a gentle dusting. Small crumbs of dirt fall from the indents in the stone – a few even startling her into shuffling away a little, just in case an ant or a beetle decides to show up. She's not the type to shriek and flail at the sight of any one of them, but she's not a fan either.

"So..." Santana frowns and repeatedly blinks down at her two hands, loudly sniffing back the watery congestion clouding her nose. "You guys probably wanna know what the fuck's goin' on with me, right?"

She holds her mouth shut for a moment's silence then, for stupid reasons when she really thinks about it.

"Well, see, let me explain. There's this girl. Brittany," she nods on the name, as if it's so loaded, it deserves its own space and weight. "She's fuckin' dizzy, and exhausting, and I, I swear to God, you _never _know what's goin' on in that odd mind of hers – or if she's even _from _this damn planet!"

Under their own steam, her tan fingers reach out and snatch a petal from one marigold's head. Without even noticing, Santana absently begins to stroke it with her thumb's pad, and sighs. "I just, I fight _so _hard not to think about her, but, she's one of those _really _annoying persistent people, and she's _kicking,_" she stresses, "my ass right now! I mean, check that night, for example. She _kind_ _of_ – I don't know –" she rolls her eyes but reluctantly nods in acceptance, "put me in my place, told me to grow some, what, lady balls? I mean, who the hell says shit like that? Everybody else has enough sense to be afraid, but it's like she flat-out refuses. And she just really gets under my ass because..." Santana pauses to think about it, fidgeting. "She really gets under my ass because more time than not, I just wanna crack her in the face, but then I, I look at her and – look," she suddenly exasperates, voice a delicate teary high-pitched whine when she groans, "are you guys getting what I'm sayin' here, 'cause I really don't think I can say all of this shit out loud?"

Unconsciously so, she leans her right ear closer to the two gravestones, listening for?

Something, apparently.

Her psyche zones into the silence, and suddenly an image of both her mother and father, staring at her with confused frowns, flashes in her mind.

So Santana sighs, and rests the slender orange petal between her fingers to the grass. "I like her," she rushes out the mumble, eyes flickering up at the two headstones like they're about to do something to her. "And before you ask me why, don't, 'cause at this point, coach Sylvester from back in high school probably has a better idea than me. I mean, this Brittany: she's strange, she won't take my shit, and she irks the shit outta me, and she's a girl, and the way she looks at me sometimes – fuck, I don't even know what's wrong with me, but...I _know_ that I have to see what this is all about, or I'm gonna lose my fucking mind," she tells the stones, voice but a murmur when she begs: "Ok?"

She peers between the two gravestones, and they just peer back.

Suddenly she feels a little braver, scooting closer to them as she brushes away an escaped teardrop with her shoulder. "So, you have a daughter who..." She rolls her eyes. "Hell, you probably already knew it anyway. Every other asshole seems to."

She shrugs, possibly to relieve the invisible weight still lingering in her shoulders. "And I suppose…I suppose I'm eventually just gonna have to learn how to deal with that..."

When the three teenage boys in the distance stand, one eagerly zipping his hoody all the way up to his chin – although his baggy jeans are near hanging around his ankles – Santana also takes it as her cue to stand up. Albeit a little loud and, in her mind, disrespectful, their presence had somehow made this a bit easier; glorious buffers in a room where parents want to grill their child, but won't until the strangers leave.

Tan hands quickly dust at kneecaps, thighs, and the back of the long gray coat, as Santana dips each bare foot back into its shoe. She briefly bends again to situate the bouquet of marigolds lain in the grass at a tasteful angle, and then slips a single flower free from the bunch, twirling its stem between her two fingers whilst she pulls her phone from her pocket, and begins to press its keys...

"Hey Unc, could you get one of the boys to find out where someone lives for me? It's, erm," – she looks at the lone flower in her hand – "It's important."

.

.

.

Clocks all over the festively twinkling city read nine-forty-five PM as Santana slowly walks up on the house. The curtains have yet to be drawn, and the window's boasting a magnificent Christmas tree, blue and white lights sparkling from every branch she can see.

There's quite a bit of noise coming from inside of the house too, and it grows in Santana's ears with her slow gain on the building; music, abrupt snorts of laughter, silly voices - both deep and delicate.

She draws her long gray coat closed, buttoning it at the navel, as though it's her armor, when she steps up to the house's jungle red front door. "Alright, now just – none of that bullshit from the other day, understand?" she whispers at her body, rolling the stem of the single marigold between her two fingers.

Sucking in an abundance of oxygen and slowly blowing it free again, Santana lifts the back of her fist, wrapping it against the small glass panel in the door…

When her pale fingers unlock the front door, and twist the handle down, she's still chuckling towards the lounge, one hand cupped as if anticipating a ball. "If I catch it, we're totally doing another round of body shots, _and _I get to be _Asuka Kazama_ on _Tekken: Dark Resurrection_ for a month without you complaining about me always picking her. She's _so_ hot, especially when she makes those little grunts, and on top of being hot she'll K-O your _Feng Wei_ any day of the –"

"Uhh, _hello_?" Santana incredulously interjects.

Brittany instantly turns her head, and as she does so, the small rubber ball soars towards her, smacking her in the shin, before rolling off back into the lounge.

"You lose!" a masculine voice teases from inside.

But neither the dull throb starting up her leg or her friend's voice seem to register with the blonde, as she stands there staring at the woman on her doorstep. "Santana."

Santana looks off to her left and nods, once, as if to confirm her name. She almost wants to say merry Christmas, only Brittany doesn't look all that merry anymore.

"Here," Santana finally says, holding out the single marigold. "I'm calling a ceasefire," she says, her gaze still to her left.

Brittany frowns, but slowly takes the flower anyway. "A ceasefire? What, is that like some type of barbeque? – Like a bonfire? Are you inviting me to a barbeque, Santana?"

The Latina's shoulders rise and fall with a sigh, before she finally just gives her eyes to the woman stood in front of her. And once she looks, she gets greedy, taking her gaze over every inch of the blonde that she can see. She notes Brittany's bare feet, the gravy stain on her baggy green shirt, the pom-pom Santa hat that's pulled down over golden blonde strands.

"…No," she eventually says, giving a quick shake of the head. "It _means_ that if I see you out and about, I'm not gonna be thinkin' about knifing you anymore."

At those words, Brittany blinks in the vibrant orange flower stemmed between her fingers, and her face breaks out into an easy, natural smile – like sunshine through a raindrop. "Wait a minute, is this for me?" she asks, touching her chest.

Santana slips both hands into her coat pockets, feigning an interest in the mini gnome statue sat on the window ledge. "Oh, and tell your friend that – I don't know – I just saw someone behind him in the club with a packet of cigarettes, and decided to brush up on my English slang. Tell him to stop being such a drama queen, and that not _everything's_ about him, because I wasn't calling _him_ a fag."

Brittany looks down and smirks, knowingly. "Not everything's about him, huh?"

"No, it's not." Santana folds her arms, almost argumentatively, but not quite.

Brittany pulls the velvet-soft Santa hat off of her head, and slides the marigold into her slightly mussed blonde hair until the only visible thing left of it is its bright orange head. "So," she smirks, whispering "is the flower for me, or is it for him?"

"Did I give it to him? Nope. I gave it to you."

Brittany's smile blossoms, and she steps forward to reward the smaller woman's cheek with an appreciative peck, but Santana flinches away, brown orbs downcast in frown. "Just…slow, ok?" she says, feeling Brittany take the warmth with her when she steps back into her own space.

"I can go _so_ slow, I be goin' backwards," the blonde jests, repeatedly pinching at her baggy green shirt and then dropping the fabric, like the thugs she's seen on television.

Santana just stares at her for a moment, and when she's full on whatever it is that she's just consumed with her gaze, she blinks and then turns to leave.

"Wait!" Brittany pipes up. "Where are you going?"

"Home..." Santana slowly answers.

"You wanna come in for a little bit? We have Santa hats and Christmas crackers," Brittany softly sing-songs, like those two things are all a girl could ever ask for. "Oh yeah, and there's still some food left over too."

Santana shakes her head. "It's cool."

"Santana?"

"What?"

"I'm really happy you came, and Kurt's gonna be really pleased to hear that you said sorry."

"Uhhh…" Santana drawls. "I don't remember sayin' sorry – like, that _actual _word I never said."

Brittany just grins, and rolls her eyes. "But that's what you meant, right? And I heard it loud and clear. So thank you."

In silent surrender, Santana nods, once, before she turns and sets off down the path.

"Thank you Santa from the mall," Brittany tells the twinkling black sky.

* * *

><p><strong>Thoughts? And thanks for reading.<strong>


	9. Chapter 9

**I can't get over the response for the last chapter. Some of your insights were amazing, and so spot on that it hurt. Thanks everyone!**

**To heath47, sorry to have tugged at your heart strings. But I think you'll find that it was Santana, not me, which means I really don't have anything to apologize for :P Thanks for commenting.**

**To OnTheEdgeWithYou94, no, I find my Santana adorable too. Even when she's behaving like a crazed maniac, because I know where it's all coming from. ; ) Thanks for your comments, I'm glad you're enjoying this.**

**To shine90, I'm never serious when I don't have to be. It's a certified rule of mine. I was just pulling your leg. But seriously, if you didn't want kids, you should've told me before. Now they have to go into care, and become statistics, because I don't want them either :P xxx**

**To WakingUpInWonderland, Hey. I LOVE knowing that the last chapter made you smile. Knowing how to make people smile is a super power. I'd love to be able to do it more often : )**

**To Stalpankaka, LOL! I've said your name before lol – well typed it. But me being sad, I just spoke it out loud, and I've got to say that it's a tongue twister in all the best possible ways! I don't mean to be overwhelming. Our San's just got some issues. They're definitely not going backwards; you think Britt would allow that? Just read this chapter and you'll see ; )**

**To Kris6, Once again, thank you for the amazing insight into this story and characters. I actually sat down with a cup of tea – saddo that I am – just to read your review. Thank you :D**

Chapter Nine

Mercedes fingers through the rack of shirts, tugs the sleeve of one she thinks she likes the look of, and then shakes her head, dropping it. "Girl, I know it's been a whole two weeks since Christmas and everything, but you really missed out on that chocolate gateau. Boy, I almost ate the spoon."

"Right, so that's where all the spoons I used to have in my apartment have gone. I thought I had rats, and the whole time I just had a bad case of greedy black woman."

Mercedes nudges her friend, and Santana stumbles back a little, the two of them quietly chuckling in the women's section of the shop.

"So how did the visit to see your parents go? You never let me know on the phone the other day."

Santana suddenly looks over her shoulder. She turns and begins to half-heartedly eye the tall stand of sunglasses just behind her, and stuffs a hand into her jacket's pocket, her fingers rotating the two dice in there. "…It was cool."

"...Cool?"

"That's what I said. Did I s-s-stutter?"

"Girl, you better drop that tone."

Santana closes her eyes and sighs, before lifting their lids again and spinning back around. "Fine," she growls. "I apologized to them for not visiting sooner, I cried, I put the flowers down on their graves, and then I got the hell up out of there. Happy?"

"Ecstatic."

"Good, now can we _please_ talk about somethin' else? – The damn weather or somethin'."

"How 'bout we talk about that hunk of chocolate over there who's givin' you the eye?"

Santana throws a look over her shoulder, and clocks what any sane woman would consider a gorgeous-looking guy staring at her. His chiseled jawline grows more defined with his wolfish grin, and he puts exclamation on it with a smooth stud-like wink.

Santana quickly turns back around, catches her best friend giving her a look that says, 'You better get _all _up on that. I will if you don't.'

The Latina shrugs, her gaze taking a feigned interest in the shirts hanging up in front of her. "I'm not lookin' for anythin' at the moment. Go right on ahead."

"Honey please, I bet your vibrator's dead from all the constant use."

Santana rolls her eyes away from the shirts, until she's side-eying her friend in deadpan. "Leave my vibrator out of this."

Mercedes falls into a fit of chuckles. "Which one?"

"All of 'em, that's which one."

"You haven't gotten any good dick since you kicked Puck's mowhawkin' ass to the curb. I'm just lookin' out for my girl's needs."

Santana scoffs. "Yeah, like that asshole could ever fulfill my needs. Like _that_," she says, holding up her thumb and index finger an inch apart – if that.

"Urgh!" Mercedes shudders, like she has a bad taste in her mouth, as she pulls a shirt from the rack, curiously inspecting it. "I don't know how you put up with that for two whole years. Some guys be like females down there it's so small."

"Yeah, well luckily for him it wasn't _that_ small, 'cause I'm not down with anybody else's 'Hello Kitty' but my own – and even that's a damn handful at times."

"Girl, stop it," Mercedes sniggers, hanging the shirt back up whilst shaking her head.

The moment's quiet that then ensues sees Santana suddenly thinking about Brittany and everything she's laid bare to the blonde so far. It's not much but, inexplicably, it's feels like everything to her. She's known of the ditzy woman's existence for maybe four months, and the blonde's already managed to find out more intimate things about her than anyone else in her life has, including her best friend, whose broad back she's taken to guiltily staring at.

When Mercedes suddenly turns around, Santana flinches slightly, pretends she's just flicking her hair out of her face. "Uhh, why don't we go get food now? My stomach thinks my mouth's gone on strike," she proposes, fingers still rotating the dice in her pocket.

"And _I'm _supposed to be the greedy one?"

* * *

><p>It's been so long since she's logged onto Facebook, that she's certain her profile will have been deleted by now. But as she clicks the mouse's cursor over the Facebook link in Google, her profile expands to fill her computer's plasma-flat monitor, appearing just as it had when she'd gotten bored of the site all those many months ago.<p>

She taps the keyboard's keys, logs herself in, and immediately rolls her eyes at the endless notifications flashing at her in the top left corner of the page.

Most are Mafia Wars game requests.

_If I play mafia wars with you mother fuckers, it's not gonna be some dumb Facebook game. That's for damn sure._

A few of the notifications are messages, just information about various bar and nightclub events.

Even fewer are comments on old pictures and statuses that she's posted.

Then there's the one friend request.

Santana drags the mouse about its mat, clicks the cursor on the red alert, and watches the page transform into another profile which exists under the name: _It's Brittany Biyaatch_!

The profile is as open as the woman behind it, and the profile picture is just…

"Jesus, I think my IQ just dropped ten points lookin' at this shit," Santana quietly husks to herself. But she doesn't veer from the page, instead tentatively veering deeper into its pockets with a click to Brittany's photo albums.

There are numerous albums, both from a few years back and present day, but there's one in particular, entitled _Rockaway Beach day out with the gorgeous little niece_, and its cover picture is one of a little blonde girl buried up to her neck in golden sand, her thin little brows furrowing out the sun's glare. Brittany's sat right beside the small child, holding a furiously blowing flag in the petite girl's five inch high sand belly, as she grins sideways and waves at whoever's taking the picture.

Sold, Santana clicks her way into the entire album, watching picture upon picture load into the webpage; some of sand castles and other various sand monsters, and others of Brittany and her niece pulling faces like the one in the blonde's profile picture.

Her dark charcoal orbs then lower towards a slightly startling picture of Brittany, wearing nothing but a skimpy red bikini.

Santana drops her eyes to her lap, only to have them flicker back up at the picture a few seconds later...

Everything's on show, the luxurious bulge of Brittany's slightly shiny breasts as the mounds of skin disappear off beneath the bikini bra, the oh so toned definition of her thighs and calves as her sun-kissed feet vanish into the sand. Then there's those abs, which are undoubtedly more carved out than the Latina's own.

Santana quickly clicks the back button, catching the cover picture of one other album just as she's about to exit the browser. This album has no title, but she knows she doesn't want to click it, purely for the simple fact that the cover picture holds an image of Brittany and some brunette all giggly and joint at the lips in some dark nightclub.

As she stares at it, she doesn't know how or what she feels about what she's looking at – just knows that it doesn't feel particularly good…

* * *

><p>She snaps her tongue against the roof of her mouth when the telephone begins to ring, placing the steaming tray of half-cooked chicken breast fillets on top of the stove. Putting one hand to the other, she tugs an oven glove loose, using this free hand to grab the phone off of its base.<p>

_This shit better be good._

"Hello?" she answers.

"Hey, Santana. It's me, Brittany."

Santana's mitted hand slows on its way to the oven's handle, before eventually just flopping down naturally to her side, hitting her thigh with a small _smack_. An intense frown riddles her brow. "Hold up, how'd you get this number?"

"Well Noah gave it to me in case I couldn't get through to his cell when...you know. But I never used it because he always picked up after, like, two rings. I completely forgot that he gave it to me until today, when I was going through my contact list for names of friends that I could match together on this online love calculator that I found. It lets you email them the results after and everything. _So_ cool."

"Uhh...right."

"_Soo_," Brittany drawls in a goofy voice, and Santana imagines the blonde nudging her playfully if they were stood side by side, "you feel like coming round to hang out for a bit today? Get to know each other a little better? Tell me your favorite kind of Hershey's kiss, and I'll tell you mine. You know, that sort of thing?"

"Uhh..." Santana hesitates, heart bouncing, turbulently, against the walls in her throat, because God dammit this woman's forward and knows what she wants, and Santana can deal with fighting off seven girls at once – '_No fuckin' problem. Bring it on._' – but fuck is she struggling to figure out how to deal with Brittany's nature, as well as the current question posed. "...I, uhh, I, I thought I said we'd do this slow?"

"You don't have to come here if you don't want to. I just wanna spend some time with you, Santana. You can totally pick where and when," the other voice suggests, tone fluffed with an almost heartbreaking mix of velvet softness, hope, and utmost consideration.

Santana combs shaky tan fingers through her hair, ruffling the silky strands back and forth in an act of unconscious stalling...

This is so fucking strange. She's pulled a gun on this woman, intending to do damage, and...she's attracted to her, and this is all so unfamiliar, and it's _fucking _terrifying.

All of it.

She wants to believe that she'll step out of the _Twilight Zone_ at any second, and everything will be in colour again.

But as the silence prologues, so does the grayness that appears to be coating everything.

She eventually huffs out a sigh, a little discombobulated, and oh so frustrated. "How the fuck are you even a real person, when you can be so God damn normal about this? Tell me that!" she challenges, certain chords of her husky voice dipping into aggressive tones.

"I just, I guess I understand...stuff? – well, you. I understand you," comes the other woman's feather-like but weighty response.

But it doesn't matter; it could have fallen from Brittany's lips like a feather falls to the ground, and it would still have irked Santana right down to her bones.

"What the fuck are you talking about? You don't know me from Adam _or _Eve. Let's just get that straight."

"I know that coming to my place to call a bonfire was difficult for you, but you were totally a soldier and did it anyway. _Annnd _I also know that I was so, _so _proud of you – like, you have no idea how proud. Being able to just share that with you, and then the flower? They were my two favorite Christmas gifts."

Santana scoffs. "And just what the hell makes you think I need anybody to be proud of me?"

"But, everybody wants someone to be proud of them, Santana, even if that someone is you being proud of yourself."

The Latina finds herself unable to counter; cat's got her tongue, and just won't give it the fuck back.

Brittany recognizes the silence. It's the same one that everybody falls under when she says something that's so innately logical to her. She'll never understand why people do it, when this simple logic is so innately a part of them too.

"Santana, are you still there, or did you drop the phone in the toilet bowl on accident, 'cause I did that once, and the toilet tank still rings every time you flush it."

Santana frowns to herself in another moment of stretching silence, before shaking off her undecided feelings over what Brittany's just said to her. "Look," she says, glancing at the wall clock with a sigh, "you can, uhh…" She ruffles the soft black strands at the back of her head, lets her slightly trembling hand slip down to rest on her hip. "If you come here you gotta keep your little hands where I can see 'em at all times, and don't try to steal anything. I don't let strangers in my apartment so, seriously, don't make me regret this."

"Only thing I'm trying to steal is your heart," Brittany says under her breath, her impish smirk so vivid in her voice that one could probably do a rub art of it, like those charcoal gravestone rubbings.

Santana pulls the phone away from her ear, stares at it unblinking for a second, and then slowly returns it. "Yeah, well good luck with that," she says, the _you're gonna need it _implied.

"Thanks," the blonde chirps. "So I'll see you in, like, a half hour?"

"An hour and a half," Santana quickly says, just to be a bitch about it.

"Well, see," Brittany begins, voice now glum, "I can't 'cause I have this doctor's appoin – I'm _totally _screwing with you!" she chuckles, before altering her request. "So I'll see you in an hour and a half then?"

"I guess," Santana mutters, folding her arms.

"Awesome!"

.

.

Whilst constantly rolling her eyes at her own behavior, she bustles around her lounge; clearing dirty plates from the coffee table, collecting empty beer cans from the floor and trashing them, but even with her frequent sighs and eye rolls, her hands still continue to beat the wrinkles out of the sofa cushions.

She buzzes past the mirror at one point, refuses to check how she looks though.

She's drawing the line at that.

"Fuck, are you _really_ doing this shit?" she asks herself, standing in the middle of the room, a little pushed for breath.

In that moment there's a crisp knock on the door. An anxious heat boils in her gut, searing up and spreading throughout her chest just beneath her sternum.

She looks down at her body. "Jesus Christ, if I have to tell you to behave one more time, you aint gettin' any vibrator action for a month. Am I making myself clear?"

She nods slightly when she thinks her body's understood, runs a hand through her hair, and crosses the room, blowing out a breath before unlocking the front door, and pulling it ajar.

"Hey Santana." Brittany immediately chirps, with a merry little wave.

"'Sup."

"Just my nips; outside is f-f-freezing!" the blonde shudders, stepping inside.

Santana notes the orange marigold in the blonde's hair as she breezes past her. "...Right, well, uhh, go take a seat, and _don't_ touch anything, 'cept the sofa you're about to sit down on!"

Santana then moves off into the kitchen, inventing various tasks for herself whilst eying the chirpy blonde sat on the sofa, like a potential victim warily watches an attacker's knife strokes through the air so that he can dodge them. She told herself she'd wash the pans later, when she could be bothered with it, but boy are they calling her now.

After walking towards the sink, she twists the faucet on and squeezes the uncapped bottle of washing up liquid into the pooling water, watching it rise and bubble with suds. In the midst of this, she throws another side eye glance over at Brittany, watches the woman slide the single flower out from her braided blonde hair, gazing happily at it, before slipping it back in.

There's nothing else to do once the pans are washed _and_ hand dried. Kitchen's spic and span, unfortunately, so Santana pulls open the door to her fridge, peering inside. She grabs a bottle of water, purposely slams the fridge door and twists off the cap, swigging from the cold bottle as she paces, somewhat, from one end of her small kitchen to the other, stalking Brittany's every move...

Some seven minutes later, when her bladder is almost painfully full, Santana finally begins her steady gait towards the sofa. She thuds the coffee table, a little menacingly, with the now empty, capped, bottle she'd been drinking from, and slumps her body down a whole sofa cushion away from Brittany.

The two of them just stare at one another…

Brittany briefly frowns, her sapphire blue orbs dropping in an attempt to see her own chin. "Do I have food at the corner of my mouth, 'cause I just gobbled down a Chicken Tikka wrap on the way here? I used a wet wipe, but I know I can be a little messy with food, so…" she shrugs.

Without a word, Santana reaches forward and snatches the television remote from the coffee table, hitting a button which sees the nicely-sized plasma screen pixilate with moving images and sound. She then grabs that empty bottle, beats it repeatedly off of her upper thigh.

When Brittany suddenly smirks, it throws Santana completely. "What are you smirkin' at?"

The blonde waves it off, smirk now a small chuckle. "Nothing."

"I asked you a question."

"…I gave you an answer," Brittany shrugs a soft shoulder, brow slightly caterpillared like she doesn't know what more she can do.

Santana continues to beat the bottle off of her thigh. "Well you were laughin' at somethin'."

"Sometimes I just burst out with spontaneous fits of laughter. It runs in my family. When my grandfather did some research into it, he discovered that we descend from a species of natural born clowns." Brittany says, somewhat sadly from what the Latina can tell. But she's not sure whether the blonde's fucking around or not.

She's never sure of anything around this damn woman, and her first instinct is to flee this torturous unfamiliarity.

So Santana jumps up again, her feet taking her into the kitchen. "You want a drink?" she half barks, the open fridge door shielding her entire body, besides her legs.

Brittany grins, utterly sweetened by the offer. "Oh my God, that would be awesome, Santana. What do you have?" she calls back.

"You'll get what your ass is given," Santana grumbles under her breath, as she takes out a bottle of _Fanta_, and pours a generous glass.

Heading back over to the sofa again, she hands Brittany the beverage. "Don't spill it," she warns as their hands momentarily brush with the exchange.

"Thank you," the blonde smiles, before taking numerous short little sips from the fizzy orange liquid. She then lowers the glass from her strawberry-pink lips, blinks and rubs her stomach with her other hand. "Wow! This is so fizzy I could burp for days."

"Burp, and I swear I'll be tempted to make you eat it back down again," Santana mumbles, resuming her seat a cushion away from Brittany. "But if, for whatever reason you can't hold your gas, let me know in advance so I can throw open the window. We clear on that?"

Brittany's shoulders gently shudder with her chuckle as she shakes her head. "We're good on that."

"Good. Now hush so that I can watch my daytime TV."

Despite the demand for hush, the two descend into brief periods of small-talk, either when something on the television piques mutual discussion out of them, or when Brittany brings something up.

Everything's easier than it was for Santana say fifteen minutes ago. Or at least it seems that way, if her body's behavior is anything to go by. Her shoulders have become a tiny bit more lax, her heart has cooled off slightly with its assault on her insides, and somebody seems to've put a cap on her constantly-poised-to-slash tongue.

But her arms are still folded across her chest, whilst she repeatedly sneaks small side eye glances at the woman beside her, telling herself that she's just keeping an eye on the drink in the blonde's grasp to make sure she isn't spilling it.

But there are parts of her that know better.

"Ooh, ooh," Brittany suddenly pipes up, pointing at the television with child-like excitement. "This song reminds me of the TV show, Glee. I _love _Glee. Do you like Glee too, Santana?"

"I don't watch that shit."

"Well," the animated blonde begins, quickly leaning forward to set her drink down on the table, "there are these two smokin' cheerleaders in it, who're _totally_ digging each other. They kind of remind me a little of us, actually."

"Are you serious?." Santana raises a brow, unimpressed. "I'm nothin' like that fool, Naya. I'm way hotter, and I'd mop the floors, windows, _and_ walls with her constantly-cryin' ass."

Brittany smirks, victoriously pumping a fist in the air. "So you _do _watch it. I knew it!"

Santana rolls her eyes and sighs, mumbling, "My friend, Mercedes, has it on sometimes when I go there."

"Oh my God, you totally TiVo it, don't you? You're _so _cute."

Everything then falls into a different kind of hush than the one preceding it. There's a frost in this one that would challenge the weather just beyond the windows.

"Santana, did I say something wrong?"

"No."

_Now just shut up and watch some damn TV with me._

With the stealth of an inconspicuous spy, Brittany scoots across the couch so that she's near brushing shoulders with the frowning Latina. She then reaches out and gently pulls Santana's folded arms apart. "Is it ok if I put my arm around you?" she whispers, as if it'll just be their little secret should she get the go ahead.

Santana stays quiet, only giving a quick stiff nod after more than a few lengthy moments of inner deliberation.

Brittany smiles so hard that her cheeks almost begin to glow with their ache. She feigns an over-the-top yawn, and lifts her arm with it, slipping her limb lightly around the smaller woman's tense shoulders. "I've _always _wanted to do the yawn thing. But forget about that; is this ok?" she asks, still maintaining this soft whisper.

"It's cool," Santana nods once at the television, outwardly cool, calm, and collected, when the inside of her stomach is fluttering with more butterflies than she ever thought possible. She'd think it was on a wash cycle if she didn't know any better.

_Holy shit! Are you gonna be sick? Bitch, don't be sick! Just do that breathing shit you saw on Mercedes' yoga DVD, and suit the fuck up!_

"You know," Brittany suddenly says, sneaking a mischievous eye towards the quiet woman resting against her arm, "I managed to get two tickets to the UFC event that's supposed to be coming to town next week. Wanna come see some dudes beat each other up with me?" she proposes, voice light and chirpy.

Santana slowly steers her squint towards the blonde, unaware of the size that her deep brown discs grow to once Brittany's words sink in. "Get the _fuck _out of town! _You_ have UFC 144 tickets?" Though, as soon as her excitement peaks it dwindles again, when she realizes that this outing is going to require her to be seen out in public...with Brittany, because – nobody can tell her any different at this point– she's certain that people will just _know _if they're seen out together.

Her forehead then suddenly wrinkles in a forehead-twister of a frown, as she steers the conversation back: "Hold up a minute." She leans away from the arm that's propped up on the back of the sofa around her shoulders. "How the hell do _you_ know that I watch UFC?"

"Elves told me in my sleep," Brittany responds, face so straight you could walk a line on it...

Santana just maintains her frown, blinking to herself, before she looks back up into those ambiguous sapphire blue orbs.

"I swear," Brittany whispers, noting the utter confusion riddling the Latina's features, whilst inwardly appreciating the fact that she's being allowed to witness how cute the sight is from this close up. "So you wanna come with me to the event?" she chirps again.

Santana has to turn her gaze towards the television to think about it, knows that she's probably going to have to deal with being seen out in public with this woman sooner or later. It pains her to question whether or not she has the balls just yet, because she's Santana 'Beat a bitch down' Lopez, but she _knows_ that any glance – no matter how non-judgmental or fleeting – may just send her toppling straight off the deep end…

After what seems like an eternity, to both of them, she eventually mumbles, "I'll think about it," never looking away from the television.

Brittany smiles, nodding. "Alright, well take all the time you need, Santana."

"I will, don't worry about that."

.

.

.

.

"Wait, before I go, could I quickly check my email real quick?"

With worlds of suspicion circling her dark coffee hues, Santana slowly looks from the pleading blonde to the computer situated in the far corner of her lounge. She presses her hand to the front door, slowly pushing it back in, before folding her arms. "What do you _really_ intend to do with my PC?" she probes, having learned, the hard way, that this blonde is always capable of the unexpected.

"Nothing." Brittany shrugs. "I just really have to check my email."

"What for?" Santana interrogates through a side-ward squint.

"It's personal," Brittany's fast to respond. "But it's really, really important?"

Santana wonders what could be personal to a woman who always seems so open, but then again she's not all that convinced that the tall blonde is telling her the truth.

"…_Two_ minutes. And _don_'t mess anythin' up on there!"

Brittany smiles wide, merrily crossing the room to take up a seat in the swivel chair that's poised just in front of the computer desk.

"One minute and fifty-six seconds left, one minute and fifty-_five_ seconds left, one minute and fifty-_four_ seconds left," Santana chants, tapping her foot.

Brittany just giggles at the computer screen, and twists from side to side in the chair as her palm moves the mouse about its mat…

The moment Brittany's out of the front door and it' been locked, Santana races over to her computer, dropping down into the still warm chair. She finds the Firefox browser open with two different tabs.

She clicks the Facebook tab first, watching as the page fills the screen.

_Santana Lopez and It's Brittany Biyaatch are now friends._

She blinks at the small notification, slowly shaking her head in sheer incredulous – before she remembers the other tab that she has yet to click. She lets the cursor hover over it, and taps the mouse's left button.

Another page expands to fill the screen.

_Love calculator Results_

_These are the results of the calculations by Dr. Love:_

_Santana Lopez & Brittany Pierce:_

_82%_

_Dr. Love thinks that a relationship between Santana Lopez and Brittany Pierce has a very good chance of being successful, but this doesn't mean that you don't have to work on the relationship. Remember that every relationship needs spending time together, talking with each other etc…_

"Where on earth do you come from?" she quietly asks the silent lounge.

* * *

><p><strong>So who else thinks that Santana wants to screw the living breath out of Brittany's lungs? *raises hand*<strong>

**And those are the results of a real love calculator test that I did for San and Britt.  
><strong>

**As always, thoughts? And thanks for reading.**


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